From the archives: Bush announces invasion of Iraq in 2003 address to the nation

President George W. Bush announced the U.S. invasion of Iraq in a nationwide address on March 19, 2003, marking the beginning of a major military operation based on the administration's assessment that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and posed a threat to American security. The invasion, launched without explicit United Nations authorization for military action, would involve a "shock and awe" campaign of sustained bombing followed by a ground offensive. The decision proved consequential and controversial—the war lasted nearly nine years, resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths, cost over $2 trillion, and destabilized the Middle East in ways that contributed to the rise of extremist groups including ISIS. No weapons of mass destruction were ever found in Iraq, fueling subsequent debate over the intelligence that justified the invasion. The conflict became one of the most divisive foreign policy decisions in modern U.S. history.