With the "shock and awe" operation, the United States began the invasion of Iraq at dawn on March 20, 2003, with the participation of British, Australian, and Polish forces, ending with the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime and the occupation of the country.

The sound of explosions began to be heard in Baghdad at 05:30 on the morning of March 20, 2003, signaling the start of the invasion operation whose first phase did not last more than 26 days.

The American authorities, in the fever of their war at that time under the slogan "Whoever is not with us is against us," raised by President George W. Bush after the September 11, 2001 attacks, promised to finally find weapons of mass destruction, cut Iraq's "relations" with terrorists, and at the same time, bring democracy to its people.

The alleged Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were promoted by falsifying and fabricating evidence as was later confirmed, and the Americans did not find any evidence to support their claims about Saddam Hussein's regime's ties with terrorists... Democracy remained, and it has not yet reached Iraq even after 20 years of its invasion.

The United States did not bat an eye, and replaced the name of its destructive and brutal invasion "shock and awe" with another name, "Iraq Freedom."

Under this name, in the following year 2004, the United States carried out two massive operations to occupy Fallujah, followed by a long bloody conflict that lasted nine years, after thinking it had occupied Iraq in just a few weeks.

Washington prepared for the invasion of Iraq with the announcement of US Secretary of State Colin Powell for the first time in February 2002 about the possibility of "regime change" in Iraq, while US President George W. Bush considered in his speech before the United Nations General Assembly on September 12, 2002, Saddam Hussein a "grave threat," and threatened Baghdad with inevitable military action if it refused to comply with the UN requirements for disarmament!

Interestingly, the American invasion of Iraq that began in 2003 and officially ended in 2011 still has repercussions in this country from time to time, striking it with the hatred, hostility, and terrorism it left behind, which found fertile ground in Abu Ghraib and other American prisons.