The Iraq Crisis

Ever since U.S. President George W. Bush included Iraq in the "Axis of Evil" in his 2002 State of the Union address, the world has watched a crisis unfold that has seen threats of war, the resumption of a United Nations weapons inspections regiment and divisions between staunch transatlantic allies. Twelve years after the end of the last war in the Persian Gulf, the United States declared the diplomatic window closed, saying that international attempts to resolve the crisis were a failure. As a result, the U.S. launched a war against Iraq on March 20, 2003 in a successful bid to disarm Saddam Hussein's regime. On May 5, President Bush pronounced the end of major combat operations, as the issue of reconstructing the country and establishing a new Iraqi government loomed large on the international agenda.

In a complete dossier of the Iraq crisis, DW-WORLD follows the events leading up to the war, military operations and the postwar developments in text, sight and sound.