Korean War

The Korean War was a military conflict between the Republic of Korea, supported by the United Nations, and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union. The war began on 25 June 1950 and an armistice was signed on 27 July 1953.

After the U.S. missions had left the People's Republic of China, CIA China station officer Douglas Mackiernan volunteered to remain and conduct spy operations. Afterward, he and a team of CIA local mercenaries then escaped China in a months-long horse trek across the Himalaya mountains; he was killed within miles of Lhasa. His team delivered the intelligence to headquarters that invasion was imminent. Thirteen days later, the North Korean People's Army crossed the 38th parallel border and invaded South Korea. Mackiernan was posthumously awarded the CIA Intelligence Star for valor.

Under the guise of counter-attacking a South Korean provocation raid, the North Korean Army crossed the 38th parallel, behind artillery fire, at Sunday dawn of 25 June 1950. The KPA said that Republic of Korea Army troops, under command of the régime of the "bandit traitor Syngman Rhee", had crossed the border first, and that they would arrest and execute Rhee. Both Korean armies had continually harassed each other with skirmishes and each continually staged raids across the 38th parallel border.

Hours later, the United Nations Security Council unanimously condemned the North Korean invasion of the Republic of South Korea, with UNSC Resolution 82. The USSR, a veto-wielding power, boycotted the Council meetings since January 1950, protesting that the Republic of China (Taiwan), not the People's Republic of China, held a permanent seat in the UN Security Council. On 27 June 1950, President Truman ordered US air and sea forces to help the South Korean régime. After debating the matter, the Security Council, on 27 June 1950, published Resolution 83 recommending member state military assistance to the Republic of Korea. On 4 July the Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister accused the US of starting armed intervention on behalf of South Korea.

On September 27, MacArthur received the top secret National Security Council Memorandum 81 1 from Truman reminding him that operations north of the 38th parallel were authorized only if at the time of such operation there was no entry into North Korea by major Soviet or Chinese Communist forces, no announcements of intended entry, nor a threat to counter our operations militaril On September 30, Defense Secretary George Marshall sent an eyes-only message to MacArthur: "We want you to feel unhampered tactically and strategically to proceed north of the 38th parallel."[64]

On 1 October 1950, the UN Command repelled the KPA northwards, past the 38th parallel; the ROK Army crossed after them, into North Korea. Six days later, on 7 October, with UN authorization, the UN Command forces followed the ROK forces northwards. The X Corps landed at Wonsan in southeastern North Korea and Iwon in northeastern North Korea, already captured by ROK forces. The Eighth United States Army and the ROK Army drove up western Korea, and captured Pyongyang city, the North Korean capital, on 19 October 1950. At month’s end, UN forces held 135,000 KPA prisoners of war.

Taking advantage of the UN Command's strategic momentum against the communists, General MacArthur believed it necessary to extend the Korean War into China to destroy depots supplying the North Korean war effort. President Truman disagreed, and ordered caution at the Sino Korean border.

The war was a result of the political division of Korea by agreement of the victorious Allies at the conclusion of the Pacific War. The Korean peninsula had been ruled by Japan prior to the end of the war. In 1945 following the surrender of Japan, American administrators divided the peninsula along the 38th parallel, with United States troops occupying the southern part and Soviet troops occupying the northern part. The failure to hold free elections throughout the Korean Peninsula in 1948 deepened the division between the two sides, and the North established a Communist government. The 38th Parallel increasingly became a political border between the two Koreas. Although reunification negotiations continued in the months preceding the war, tension intensified. Cross-border skirmishes and raids at the 38th Parallel persisted. The situation escalated into open warfare when North Korean forces invaded South Korea on June 25, 1950. It was the first significant armed conflict of the Cold War.

The United Nations, particularly the United States, came to the aid of the South Koreans in repelling the invasion. After early defeats by the North Korean military, when a rapid UN counter-offensive repelled the North Koreans past the 38th Parallel and almost to the Yalu River, the People's Republic of China came to the aid of Communist North. With Communist China's entry into the conflict, the fighting took on a more dangerous tone. The Soviet Union materially aided North Korea and China. The threat of a nuclear world war eventually ceased with an armistice that restored the border between the Koreas at the 38th Parallel and created the Korean Demilitarized Zone, a 2.5-mile wide buffer zone between the two Koreas. North Korea unilaterally withdrew from the armistice on May 27, 2009, thus returning to a de jure state of war.

Gulf Wars

The Persian Gulf War (August 2, 1990 – February 28, 1991), commonly referred to as the Gulf War, also known as the First Gulf War (not to be confused with the Iran–Iraq War)or the Second Gulf War,and by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein as The Mother of all Battles, and commonly as Desert Storm for the military response, was the final conflict, which was initiated with United Nations authorization, by a coalition force from 34 nations against Iraq, with the expressed purpose of expelling Iraqi forces from Kuwait after its invasion and annexation on 2 August 1990.



The Iraqi government made no secret that it would attack Israel if invaded. Prior to the start of the war, Tariq Aziz, Iraq's English-speaking Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, was asked in the aftermath of the failed U.S.-Iraq peace talks in Geneva, Switzerland by a reporter. “Mr. Foreign Minister, if war starts...will you attack Israel?” the reporter asked. His response was, “Yes, absolutely, yes.”
Five hours after the first attacks, Iraq's state radio broadcast a voice identified as Saddam Hussein declaring that "The great duel, the mother of all battles has begun. The dawn of victory nears as this great showdown begins." Iraq responded by launching eight Iraqi modified Scud missiles into Israel the next day. These missile attacks on Israel were to continue throughout the six weeks of the war.

The Iraqis hoped that, by attacking Israel, they would be drawn into the war. It was expected that many Arab nations would withdraw from the coalition, as they would be reluctant to fight alongside Israel.[citation needed] Israel, at the request of the United States, did not join the war, and all Arab states remained in the coalition. The Scud missiles generally caused light damage, although their potency was felt in a Dhahran missile attack, which killed 28 U.S. soldiers.

The Scud missiles targeting Israel were relatively ineffective, as firing at extreme range resulted in a dramatic reduction in accuracy and payload. Nevertheless, the 39 missiles that landed on Israel caused extensive property damage and two deaths. Israeli civilians were handed out gas masks by the Israeli government, in case any of the missiles targeting the population contained chemical agents, and Israeli citizens were forced to wear these masks and seek shelter whenever an alarm signaling an approaching Scud missile was sounded. The United States deployed two Patriot missile battalions in Israel, and the Netherlands sent one Patriot Squadron in an attempt to deflect the attacks. Allied air forces were also extensively exercised in "Scud hunts" in the Iraqi desert, trying to locate the camouflaged trucks before they fired their missiles at Israel or Saudi Arabia.

Three Scud missiles and a coalition Patriot that malfunctioned hit Ramat Gan in Israel on 22 January 1991, injuring 96 people, and possibly causing the deaths of three elderly people who died of heart attacks.

Israeli policy for the previous forty years had always been retaliation, but after hits by Scud missiles, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir showed restraint and agreed not to retaliate in response to requests from the United States to remain out of the conflict.[44] The U.S. government was concerned that any Israeli action would cost them allies and escalate the conflict, and an air strike by the IAF would have required overflying hostile Jordan or Syria, which could have provoked them to enter the war on Iraq's side or to attack Israel.

The invasion of Kuwait by Iraqi troops that began 2 August 1990 was met with international condemnation, and brought immediate economic sanctions against Iraq by members of the UN Security Council. U.S. President George H. W. Bush deployed American forces to Saudi Arabia and urged other countries to send their own forces to the scene. An array of nations joined the Coalition of the Gulf War. The great majority of the military forces in the coalition were from the United States, with Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom and Egypt as leading contributors, in that order. Around US$40 billion of the US$60 billion cost was paid by Saudi Arabia.

The initial conflict to expel Iraqi troops from Kuwait began with an aerial bombardment on 17 January 1991. This was followed by a ground assault on 23 February. This was a decisive victory for the coalition forces, who liberated Kuwait and advanced into Iraqi territory. The coalition ceased their advance, and declared a cease-fire 100 hours after the ground campaign started. Aerial and ground combat was confined to Iraq, Kuwait, and areas on the border of Saudi Arabia. However, Iraq launched missiles against coalition military targets in Saudi Arabia.

The Spanish–American War was a conflict in 1898 between Spain and the United States.[6] Revolts had been endemic for decades in Cuba and were closely watched by Americans; there had been war scares before, as in the Virginius Affair in 1873. By 1897–98 American public opinion grew more angry at reports of Spanish atrocities, and, after the mysterious sinking of the battleship Maine in Havana harbor, pushed the government headed by President William McKinley, a Republican, into a war McKinley had wished to avoid. Compromise proved impossible; Spain declared war on April 23, 1898; the U.S. Congress on April 25 declared the official opening as April 21.

The Spanish had first landed in the Philippines on March 17, 1521, though colonization did not start until 1565. Since then, the islands had been a key holding for the Spanish Empire. In the 300 years of Spanish rule, the country developed from a small overseas colony governed from the Viceroyalty of New Spain to a modern partly autonomous country, with infrastructure, schools, hospitals and universities.

On June 20, 1898, a U.S. fleet commanded by Captain Henry Glass, consisting of the cruiser USS Charleston and three transports carrying troops to the Philippines entered Guam's Apra Harbor, Captain Glass having opened sealed orders instructing him to proceed to Guam and capture it. The Charleston fired a few cannon rounds at Fort Santa Cruz without receiving return fire. Two local officials, not knowing that war had been declared and being under the misapprehension that the firing had been a salute, came out to the Charleston to apologize for their inability to return the salute. Glass informed them that the United States and Spain were at war. The following day, Glass sent Lt. William Braunersruehter to meet the Spanish Governor to arrange the surrender of the island and the Spanish garrison there. Some 54 Spanish infantry were captured and transported to the Philippines as prisoners of war. No U.S. forces were left on Guam, but the only U.S. citizen on the island, Frank Portusach, told Captain Glass that he would look after things until U.S. forces returned.[41]

Although the main issue was Cuban independence, the ten-week war was fought in both the Caribbean and the Pacific and was notable for a series of one-sided American naval and military victories. The outcome by late 1898 was a peace treaty favorable to the U.S., followed by temporary American control of Cuba and indefinite colonial authority over Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines. Spain, whose politics had become highly unstable, managed to get rid of a very expensive empire with honor (the U.S. paid Spain $20 million). The victor gained several island possessions spanning the globe and a rancorous new debate over the wisdom of imperialism.[7]

MY INFORMATION FOUNDED ON WIKIPEDIA

WWI

World War I was a military conflict that lasted from 1914 to 1918 and involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Allies centred around the Triple Entente and the Central Powers. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilized in one of the largest wars in history. More than 15 million people were killed, making it one of the deadliest conflicts in history. The war is also known as the First World War, the Great War, the World War prior to the outbreak of World War II, and the War to End All Wars.The First World War began as a clash of twentieth century technology and nineteenth century tactics, with inevitably large casualties. By the end of 1917, however, the major armies, now numbering millions of men, had modernized and were making use of telephone, wireless communication, armoured cars, tanks, and aircraft. Infantry formations were reorganized, so that 100 man companies were no longer the main unit of maneuver. Instead, squads of 10 or so men, under the command of a junior NCO, were favoured. Artillery also underwent a revolution.

In 1914, cannons were positioned in the front line and fired directly at their targets. By 1917, indirect fire with guns as well as mortars and even machine guns was commonplace, using new techniques for spotting and ranging, notably aircraft and the often overlooked field telephone. Counter-battery missions became commonplace, also, and sound detection was used to locate enemy batteries.

Germany was far ahead of the Allies in utilising heavy indirect fire. She employed 150 and 210 mm howitzers in 1914 when the typical French and British guns were only 75 and 105 mm. The British had a 6 inch 152 mm howitzer, but it was so heavy it had to be hauled to the field in pieces and assembled. Germans also fielded Austrian 305 mm and 420 mm guns, and already by the beginning of the war had inventories of various calibers of Minenwerfer ideally suited for trench warfare.

Much of the combat involved trench warfare, where hundreds often died for each yard gained. Many of the deadliest battles in history occurred during the First World War. Such battles include Ypres, the Marne, Cambrai, the Somme, Verdun, and Gallipoli. The Haber process of nitrogen fixation was employed to provide the German forces with a constant supply of gunpowder, in the face of British naval blockade. Artillery was responsible for the largest number of casualties and consumed vast quantities of explosives. The large number of head-wounds caused by exploding shells and fragmentation forced the combatant nations to develop the modern steel helmet, led by the French, who introduced the Adrian helmet in 1915. It was quickly followed by the Brodie helmet, worn by British Imperial and U.S. troops, and in 1916 by the distinctive German Stahlhelm, a design, with improvements, still in use today.

The widespread use of chemical warfare was a distinguishing feature of the conflict. Gases used included chlorine, mustard gas and phosgene. Few war casualties were caused by gas, as effective countermeasures to gas attacks were quickly created, such as gas masks. The use of chemical warfare and small-scale strategic bombing were both outlawed by the 1907 Hague Conventions, and both proved to be of limited effectiveness, though they captured the public imagination.

The most powerful land-based weapons were railway guns weighing hundreds of tons apiece. These were nicknamed Big Berthas, even though the namesake was not a railway gun. Germany developed the Paris Gun, able to bombard Paris from over 100 kilometres 60 mi, though shells were relatively light at 94 kilograms 210 lb. While the Allies had railway guns, German models severely out-ranged and out-classed them.
RAF Sopwith Camel.

Fixed-wing aircraft were first used militarily by the Italians in Libya 23 October 1911 during the Italo-Turkish War for reconnaissance, soon followed by the dropping of grenades and aerial photography the next year. By 1914 the military utility was obvious. They were initially used for reconnaissance and ground attack. To shoot down enemy planes, anti-aircraft guns and fighter aircraft were developed. Strategic bombers were created, principally by the Germans and British, though the former used Zeppelins as well. Towards the end of the conflict, aircraft carriers were used for the first time, with HMS Furious launching Sopwith Camels in a raid to destroy the Zeppelin hangars at Tondern in 1918.

German U-boats (submarines) were deployed after the war began. Alternating between restricted and unrestricted submarine warfare in the Atlantic, they were employed by the Kaiserliche Marine in a strategy to deprive the British Isles of vital supplies. The deaths of British merchant sailors and the seeming invulnerability of U-boats led to the development of depth charges hydrophones (passive sonar, , blimps, hunter-killer submarines HMS R&-1, 1917, forward-throwing anti-submarine weapons, and dipping hydrophones (the latter two both abandoned in 1918. To extend their operations, the Germans proposed supply submarines. Most of these would be forgotten in the interwar period until World War II revived the need.
British Vickers machine gun.

Trenches, machineguns, air reconnaissance, barbed wire, and modern artillery with fragmentation shells helped bring the battle lines of World War I to a stalemate. The British sought a solution with the creation of the tank and mechanized warfare. The first tanks were used during the Battle of the Somme on 15 September 1916. Mechanical reliability became an issue, but the experiment proved its worth. Within a year, the British were fielding tanks by the hundreds and showed their potential during the Battle of Cambrai in November 1917, by breaking the Hindenburg Line, while combined arms teams captured 8000 enemy soldiers and 100 guns. Light automatic weapons also were introduced, such as the Lewis Gun and Browning automatic rifle.

Manned observation balloons, floating high above the trenches, were used as stationary reconnaissance platforms, reporting enemy movements and directing artillery. Balloons commonly had a crew of two, equipped with parachutes. If there was an enemy air attack, the crew could parachute to safety. At the time, parachutes were too heavy to be used by pilots of aircraft with their marginal power output) and smaller versions would not be developed until the end of the war; they were also opposed by British leadership, who feared they might promote cowardice. Recognized for their value as observation platforms, balloons were important targets of enemy aircraft.
Johnson's Nieuport 11 armed with Le Prieur rockets for attacking observation balloons.

To defend against air attack, they were heavily protected by antiaircraft guns and patrolled by friendly aircraft; to attack them, unusual weapons such as air-to-air rockets were even tried. Blimps and balloons contributed to air-to-air combat among aircraft, because of their reconnaissance value, and to the trench stalemate, because it was impossible to move large numbers of troops undetected. The Germans conducted air raids on England during 1915 and 1916 with airships, hoping to damage British morale and cause aircraft to be diverted from the front lines. The resulting panic took several squadrons of fighters from France.

Another new weapon, flamethrowers, were first used by the German army and later adopted by other forces. Although not of high tactical value, they were a powerful, demoralizing weapon and caused terror on the battlefield. It was a dangerous weapon to wield, as its heavy weight made operators vulnerable targets.

Trench railways evolved to supply the enormous quantities of food, water, and ammunition required to support large numbers of soldiers in areas where conventional transportation systems had been destroyed. Internal combustion engines and improved traction systems for wheeled vehicles eventually rendered trench railways obsolete.No other war had changed the map of Europe so dramatically—four empires disappeared: the German, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman and the Russian. Four defunct dynasties, the Hohenzollerns, the Habsburg, Romanovs and the Ottomans together with all their ancillary aristocracies, all fell after the war. Belgium and Serbia were badly damaged, as was France with 1.4 million soldiers dead, not counting other casualties. Germany and Russia were similarly affected.

Of the 60 million European soldiers who were mobilized from 1914–1918, 8 million were killed, 7 million were permanently disabled, and 15 million were seriously injured. Germany lost 15.1% of its active male population, Austria–Hungary lost 17.1%, and France lost 10.5%. About 750,000 German civilians died from starvation caused by the British blockade during the war. By the end of the war, famine had killed approximately 100,000 people in Lebanon. The war had profound economic consequences. In addition, a major influenza epidemic spread around the world. Overall, the Spanish flu killed at least 50 million people. In 1914 alone, louse-borne epidemic typhus killed 200,000 in Serbia.

There were about 25 million infections and 3 million deaths from epidemic typhus in Russia from 1918 to 1922. The best estimates of the death toll from the Russian famine of 1921 run from 5 million to 10 million people.By 1922 there were 4.5 7 million homeless children in Russia as a result of nearly a decade of devastation from World War I, the Russian Civil War, and the subsequent famine of 1920–1922. Considerable numbers of anti-Soviet Russians fled the country after the Revolution; by the 1930s the northern Chinese city of Harbin had 100,000 Russians.

Lobbying by Chaim Weizmann and fear that American Jews would encourage the USA to support Germany culminated in the Balfour Declaration of 1917 by the British government. This endorsed the creation of a Jewish Homeland in Palestine. Over 1,172,000 Jewish soldiers served in the Allied and Central Power forces in World War I, including 450,000 in Czarist Russia and 275,000 in Austria-Hungary. Over 2000 pogroms accompanied the Revolution of 1917 and the ensuing Russian Civil War, 60,000–200,000 civilian Jews were killed in the atrocities throughout the former Russian Empire.[ Most of the pogroms occurred in the Ukraine. INFORMATION FOUND ON WIKIPEDIA.COM

The American Civil War

The American Civil War was a war fought by North part of American and the South part of America. This war was caused to do slavery and new laws that the southerners did not aggree with.In the presidential election of 1860, the Republican Party, led by Abraham Lincoln, had campaigned against the expansion of slavery beyond the states in which it already existed. The Republican victory in that election resulted in seven Southern states declaring their secession from the Union even before Lincoln took office on March 4, 1861. Both the outgoing administration of President James Buchanan, and Lincoln's incoming administration rejected the legality of secession, considering it rebellion.

Hostilities began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces attacked a US military installation at Fort Sumter in South Carolina. Lincoln responded by calling for a volunteer army from each state, leading to declarations of secession by four more Southern slave states. Both sides raised armies as the Union assumed control of the border states early in the war and established a naval blockade. In September 1862, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation made ending slavery in the South a war goal,[2] and dissuaded the British from intervening.[3]

Confederate commander Robert E. Lee won battles in the east, but in 1863 his northward advance was turned back with heavy casualties after the Battle of Gettysburg and, in the west, the Union gained control of the Mississippi River after their capture of Vicksburg, Mississippi, thereby splitting the Confederacy in two. Long-term Union advantages in men and material were realized in 1864 when Ulysses S. Grant fought battles of attrition against Lee, while Union general William Tecumseh Sherman captured Atlanta, Georgia, and marched to the sea. Confederate resistance collapsed after Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865.

The American Civil War was one of the earliest true industrial wars in human history. Railroads, steamships, mass-produced weapons, and various other military devices were employed extensively. The practices of total war, developed by Sherman in Georgia, and of trench warfare around Petersburg foreshadowed World War I in Europe. It remains the deadliest war in American history, resulting in the deaths of 620,000 soldiers and an undetermined number of civilian casualties. Ten percent of all Northern males 20-45 years of age died, as did 30 percent of all Southern white males aged 18-40. Victory for the North meant the end of the Confederacy and of slavery in the United States, and strengthened the role of the federal government. The social, political, economic and racial issues of the war decisively shaped the reconstruction era that lasted to 1877.

Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia on April 9, 1865, at the McLean House in the village of Appomattox Court House.[118] In an untraditional gesture and as a sign of Grant's respect and anticipation of peacefully folding the Confederacy back into the Union, Lee was permitted to keep his officer's saber and his horse, Traveller. On April 14, 1865, President Lincoln was shot. Lincoln died early the next morning, and Andrew Johnson became President.

Events leading to Lee's surrender began with the capture of key Confederate officers Richard S. Ewell and Richard H. Anderson on April 6, following Confederate defeat at the battle of Sayler's Creek. On April 8, Union cavalry under Major General George Armstrong Custer destroyed three trains of Confederate supplies at Appomattox Station, leading to the surrender of General Lee the next day.[119] General St. John Richardson Liddell's army surrendered after the loss of the Confederate fortifications at the Battle of Spanish Fort in Alabama, also on April 9.

Unaware of the surrender of Lee, on April 16 the last major battles of the war were fought at the Battle of Columbus, Georgia and the Battle of West Point. Both towns surrendered to Wilson's Raiders.

On April 21, John S. Mosby’s raiders of the 43rd Battalion Virginia Cavalry was disbanded, and on April 26, General Joseph E. Johnston surrendered his troops to Sherman at Bennett Place in Durham, North Carolina. Surrendering on May 4 and 5 were the Confederate departments of Alabama, Mississippi and East Louisiana regiments and the District of the Gulf. The Confederate President was captured on May 10 and the surrender of the Department of Florida and South Georgia happened the same day. Confederate Brigadier General "Jeff" Meriwether Thompson surrendered his brigade the next day and the day following saw the surrender of the Confederate forces of North Georgia.

On June 23, 1865, at Fort Towson in the Choctaw Nations' area of the Oklahoma Territory, Stand Watie signed a cease-fire agreement with Union representatives, becoming the last Confederate general in the field to stand down. The last Confederate ship to surrender was the CSS Shenandoah, whose officers did not know of the end of the war until August 2. Not wanting to surrender to Federal authorities, the ship's commander plotted a course for the country of his ship's birth, so that they surrendered on November 6, 1865, in Liverpool, England.[120] These surrenders marked the conclusion of the American Civil War.

Listen to LA

The Iraq war’s cause was to ensure that the Iraqi people would establish a government and to get Saddam Hussein out of Iraq. So on June 10^th 2002 the first invasion, there they scouted the area. At 5:34 AM Baghdad time on March 20, 2003 (9:34 p.m., March 19 EST) the military invasion of Iraq began. The invasion was a quick and decisive operation encountering major resistance, though not what the US, British and other forces expected. The Iraqi regime had prepared to fight both a conventional and irregular war at the same time, conceding territory when faced with superior conventional forces, largely armored, but launching smaller scale attacks in the rear using fighters dressed in civilian and paramilitary clothes. This achieved some temporary successes and created unexpected challenges for the invading forces, especially the US military. In the north, OIF-1 used the largest special operations force since the successful attack on the Taliban government of Afghanistan just over a year earlier. The Iraqi army was quickly overwhelmed in each engagement it faced with US forces, with the elite Fedayeen Saddam putting up strong, sometimes suicidal, resistance before melting away into the civilian population. On April 9 Baghdad fell, ending President Hussein's 24-year rule. US forces seized the deserted Ba'ath Party ministries and stage-managed the tearing down of a huge iron statue of Hussein, photos and video of which became symbolic of the event, although later controversial. In November 2008, Iraqi protesters staged a similar stomping on and burning of an effigy of George W. Bush. The abrupt fall of Baghdad was accompanied by a widespread outpouring of gratitude toward the invaders, but also massive civil disorder, including the looting of public and government buildings and drastically increased crime.

According to the Pentagon, 250,000 short tons (230,000 t) (of 650,000 short tons (590,000 t) total) of ordnance was looted, providing a significant source of ammunition for the Iraqi insurgency. The invasion phase concluded when Tikrit, Hussein's home town, fell with little resistance to the US Marines of Task Force Tripoli and on April 15 the coalition declared the invasion effectively over.

WW II : RARE COLOR FILM : D-DAY : JUNE 5TH 1944