Saddam Hussein had invaded Kuwait, used poison gas on the minority Kurd population, lobbed missiles at Israel, and of course brutally, mercilessly, oppressed his own people. Few would mourn his overthrow by American forces. All those were just secondary reasons for the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The weapons of mass destruction Hussein was seeking, and dangerously close to obtaining, were the main reasons cited to support the attack.

On this day, March 20, in 2003, the first missiles fell on Baghdad in “decapitation attacks” aimed for command and control centers of the Iraqi army. This was the start of American-led military operations against Saddam Hussein.

Despite an extensive post-invasion scouring of the Iraq, no evidence of WMDs was even uncovered, and many believe they were never there. The case for the Iraq-WMD connection was made by many respectable publications, including The New York Times, as it turns out on faulty information.