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The United States previously went to war with Saddam Hussein in 1991, to force his invading armies out of Kuwait.

Although Iraq had been a rich country with oil reserves, its eight-year war with Iran drained its resources.

By 1990, Iraq was in severe debt, so Saddam Hussein decided to invade Kuwait to get more oil.

The UN immediately condemned the action and Saddam Hussein’s former allies, including the USA and the UK, now attacked him.

At the end of the Gulf War, a truce was signed leaving him in power.

The UN drew up a list of requirements, known as resolutions, which required Hussein to disarm and to stop his plans to develop weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

These weapons included nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons which are able to cause widespread devastation and loss of life.

• Al-Qaeda: President George W Bush was convinced that Iraq was behind some of the 9/11 planning. He believed Al Qaeda was being helped and financed from Iraq. This was never proven.

• WMD: British and American intelligence services both deeply feared that Hussein had WMD and was prepared to use them. His use of them previously in the Iran-Iraq war made them fear this. They also knew Hussein was under increasing pressure and could be forced to do something drastic to stay in power.

• Idealism: British Prime Minister Tony Blair seemed to think that a new, democratic and rich country could become a beacon for western style democracy and capitalism in the Middle East. Blair had success in some smaller conflicts in Sierra Leone and Kosovo so felt that - sometimes - military intervention worked.

• Oil: Some critics felt that the war in Iraq was solely to do with securing a solid source of oil.

On 29 January 2002, a few months after the attacks of 9/11, President George W. Bush called Iraq part of an "axis of evil".

He also suggested that he would soon turn his foreign policy attention toward Saddam Hussein’s regime, which continued to “support terror” and break its international agreements.

Although the United Nations sent inspectors into Iraq to search for WMD, they did not find them.

The inspectors had previously been expelled from Iraq in 1998.

Regardless, President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair went ahead and invaded Iraq without the agreement of the United Nations.

The war began on 20 March 2003 with the following key events:

• March 2003: a ‘Shock and Awe’ operation saw American and coalition forces launch massive air attacks against Iraq.

• April 2003: American forces moved into Iraq’s capital city of Baghdad. Many Iraqis celebrated in the streets as statues of Saddam Hussein were pulled down and dragged through the streets.

• December 2003: Saddam Hussein was found hiding in a hole on the property of a small farmhouse. He was later charged for crimes against the Iraqi people.

• The decision to invade Iraq caused considerable tensions within the NATO alliance.
• Many in the Middle East saw it as anti-Arab.
• The failure to find any weapons of mass destruction brought Bush and Blair into the spotlight and placed a strain on international relations.
• Iraq was plunged into a civil war which allowed Al-Qaeda to thrive; eventually they merged into Islamic State (IS) and continue to pose a threat to international relations.
• The war did great damage to transatlantic relations; partly because it made many people around the world question American judgment.