Saddam's Fall
Members of the Bush administration had suspected that the Hussein government had a relationship with Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda organization. In his January 2002 State of the Union address, U.S. President George W. Bush named Iraq as part of his so-called "Axis of Evil," along with Iran and North Korea, and claimed that the country was developing weapons of mass destruction and supporting terrorism.
Later that year, UN inspections of suspected weapons sites in Iraq began, but little or no evidence that such programs existed was ultimately found. Despite this, on March 20, 2003, under the pretense that Iraq did in fact have a covert weapons program and that it was planning attacks, a U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq. Within weeks, the government and military had been toppled, and on April 9, 2003, Baghdad fell. Saddam, however, managed to elude capture.