Use this interactive timeline to see highlights from a decade of Democracy Now! coverage of the Iraq War. It was 10 years ago on March 19, 2003, that the United States invaded Iraq on the false pretext that Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction. Six weeks later, President Bush stood under a banner reading “Mission Accomplished” and declared an end to major military combat operations. But Operation Iraqi Freedom would lead to an almost nine-year U.S.-military occupation.