The US invaded Iraq 15 years ago on Tuesday.
The invasion was approved by Congress and had majority support among the American public, but is now considered one of the greatest foreign policy blunders in US history.
Former President George W. Bush's administration sold it on the pretext that Saddam Hussein had, or was trying to make, weapons of mass destruction (most notably nuclear weapons), and that Iraq's government had connections to various terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda.
While Hussein's links to terrorism and nuclear ambitions turned out to be untrue, the US occupied the country for nearly eight years before pulling out, creating a power vacuum that ISIS filled.
Two years later, the US military was back in the country — this time fighting a completely different enemy.
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