Combat· Iraq War (Op IRAQI FREEDOM)
Battle of Baghdad
The Battle of Baghdad was the culmination of the 2003 invasion, the drive into and seizure of the Iraqi capital that brought down Saddam Hussein's regime.
While the Army's forces approached from the west and south, the Marines drove up the eastern corridor, fighting through the outer defenses and across the last river obstacles to enter the city from that flank. The Marines pushed into the eastern and central districts against scattered but sometimes sharp resistance, seizing key sites including government and palace complexes as the regime's defenses collapsed. The fall of the capital, symbolized by the toppling of Saddam's statue, marked the effective end of the conventional war and the regime it toppled. For the Marines, the entry into Baghdad was the triumphant end of a rapid armored march from the Kuwaiti border, though the harder and longer war of insurgency that followed lay still ahead.
Record no. 39