At 10:16 p.m. Eastern time on March 19, 2003, a grim President Bush addressed the world from the Oval Office.
Earlier that day, he announced, American forces had launched an invasion “to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.”
“Now that conflict has come, the only way to limit its duration is to apply decisive force,” Bush said that night. “And I assure you, this will not be a campaign of half measures, and we will accept no outcome but victory.”
On Monday, four years later, more than 140,000 American servicemembers in Iraq face the latest twist in a conflict that has morphed from an overland rush to a deepening sectarian conflict. |
