March 19, 2003. That is the date.
Well, technically, if you were sitting in Baghdad, it was already the early morning of March 20. Time zones are funny like that, especially when they mark the beginning of a conflict that reshaped the entire Middle East. Most people just remember the "Shock and Awe" television broadcasts, the green-tinted night vision footage of explosions rocking the Iraqi skyline. It felt cinematic, almost unreal, but for the millions of people on the ground, it was the start of a grueling eight-year occupation.
When did the war of Iraq start? It wasn't just a single button press. It was a rolling start.
President George W. Bush gave Saddam Hussein a 48-hour ultimatum on March 17. He told the Iraqi dictator and his sons to leave the country. They didn't. So, when the deadline expired, the cruise missiles started flying. The first strike was actually a "decapitation" attempt—a specific hit on a bunker where intelligence suggested Saddam was hiding. It failed. Saddam survived that first night, but the machinery of war was already too loud to stop.
The Lead-up: Why March 2003 wasn't a surprise
You can't talk about the start date without looking at the year of posturing that came before it. Honestly, the "start" of the war was more like a slow-motion train wreck. By the time the first boots hit the sand, the United States had been building up forces in Kuwait for months.
Secretary of State Colin Powell had already made his famous—and later heavily criticized—presentation to the UN Security Council in February 2003. He held up that tiny vial of "anthrax" (it was a prop, obviously) to argue that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). We know now, thanks to the Iraq Survey Group and the Chilcot Report, that those WMDs didn't actually exist. But back then? The momentum was unstoppable.
The political start happened way before the physical start. The Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, signed by Bill Clinton, had already made "regime change" official U.S. policy. So, while the bombs fell in 2003, the fuse had been burning since the late 90s.
🔗 Read more: St. Joseph MO Weather Forecast: What Most People Get Wrong About Northwest Missouri Winters
Shock and Awe: The first 72 hours
The initial phase was designed to be terrifying. They called it "Shock and Awe." This wasn't just a catchy marketing phrase; it was a military doctrine known as Rapid Dominance. The idea was to use overwhelming force so quickly that the Iraqi military would simply give up.
On March 21, the real aerial bombardment began. Over 1,700 air sorties were flown. If you were watching CNN or Fox News at the time, you saw a constant loop of fireballs over Baghdad. It looked like the end of the world. Meanwhile, the 3rd Infantry Division and the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force were already racing across the desert from the Kuwaiti border.
They moved fast. Faster than most military experts expected.
While the infantry pushed toward Baghdad, special forces were already in the north, working with Kurdish Peshmerga fighters. This wasn't a single line of soldiers walking forward; it was a chaotic, multi-pronged invasion that hit Iraq from the south, the air, and the shadows of the north simultaneously.
The Misconception of the "Mission Accomplished" Date
A lot of folks get the start and end dates mixed up because of that giant banner on the USS Abraham Lincoln. On May 1, 2003, President Bush stood under a sign that said "Mission Accomplished." He declared that "major combat operations" were over.
He was wrong. Kinda.
💡 You might also like: Snow This Weekend Boston: Why the Forecast Is Making Meteorologists Nervous
While the conventional war—the part with tanks fighting other tanks—was mostly over because the Iraqi army had melted away, the insurgency was just beginning. The period between March and May was the "invasion," but the "war" lasted until December 2011. If you're asking when the war of Iraq started, you have to realize that the beginning was the easy part. The real conflict, the one involving IEDs, sectarian violence, and the rise of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, kicked off just as the "major combat" was supposedly ending.
Why the timing still sparks heated debates
Even years later, the "when" and "how" of the start date matter because of the legality of the whole thing. The UN never gave a second resolution explicitly authorizing the invasion. Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General at the time, eventually called the war "illegal."
The U.S. and the UK argued that old resolutions from the 1990-1991 Gulf War gave them the right to invade because Saddam hadn't followed the rules of the ceasefire. It's a legal rabbit hole. But for most historians, the "start" is anchored to that 48-hour ultimatum. It was the moment diplomacy was officially shoved aside for kinetic action.
The invasion force was actually smaller than what many generals, like Eric Shinseki, wanted. Shinseki famously told Congress that several hundred thousand troops would be needed to secure the country. He was sidelined for it. Rumsfeld wanted a "lean" force. This decision at the very start of the war is arguably why the country spiraled into such intense looting and chaos in April 2003. There just weren't enough soldiers to hold the ground they had conquered.
Key milestones in the first month
- March 20: The "decapitation strike" at Dora Farms.
- March 23: The Battle of Nasiriyah. This was one of the first major "bloody" encounters where U.S. troops faced stiff resistance.
- April 7: "Thunder Runs" into Baghdad. U.S. tanks literally just drove through the city to show they could.
- April 9: The fall of Baghdad. This is when that giant statue of Saddam Hussein in Firdos Square was pulled down.
When you see that statue fall, you're looking at the symbolic end of the beginning. But the power vacuum created that day is exactly what led to the next decade of strife.
The human cost of the beginning
We often talk about dates and military maneuvers, but the start of the war changed lives instantly. Thousands of Iraqi civilians died in the initial weeks. Thousands of Iraqi conscripts, many of whom didn't even want to fight for Saddam, were incinerated in their bunkers.
📖 Related: Removing the Department of Education: What Really Happened with the Plan to Shutter the Agency
On the U.S. side, the casualties were relatively low in those first few weeks compared to what came later during the battles for Fallujah or the "Surge." But for the families of those first few soldiers who died in the March desert, the war's start was the only date that mattered.
How to research the Iraq War today
If you're trying to dig deeper into the timeline, don't just stick to Western textbooks. The nuances are in the primary sources.
- Read the declassified documents. The National Security Archive has a massive collection of memos from the Rumsfeld and Rice offices that show the "start" was being planned as early as late 2001.
- Look at the "Frontline" documentaries. PBS did a series called "The War Council" and "Bush's War" that break down the internal White House battles over the start date.
- Check out "The Assassins' Gate" by George Packer. It’s one of the best accounts of how the early days of the war were bungled by lack of planning.
Basically, the war started because of a mix of bad intelligence, a desire for a democratic "foothold" in the Middle East, and the lingering trauma of 9/11—even though Iraq had nothing to do with those attacks.
The war of Iraq started on March 19/20, 2003, but the consequences of that specific Wednesday night are still being felt in global politics today. You can see it in the way the U.S. handles Iran, the way the public views military intervention, and the way veterans of that era carry their experiences.
If you want to understand the modern world, you have to understand that night in March. It wasn't just a military operation. It was a pivot point for the entire 21st century.
Actionable Next Steps
- Verify the Timeline: Compare the official Pentagon timeline of "Operation Iraqi Freedom" with independent journalistic accounts like those from The Guardian or The New York Times archives from March 2003 to see how the narrative shifted in real-time.
- Analyze the Justification: Review the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq's WMDs, which is now largely declassified, to see the specific claims that led to the March 19 launch.
- Study the Aftermath: Research the "CPA Order Number 1" (De-Ba'athification) and "CPA Order Number 2" (Dissolution of the Iraqi Military) issued shortly after the start of the war. These two documents are widely cited by experts as the reasons the initial "victory" turned into a long-term insurgency.