The Invasion of Iraq began on the 20th March 2003. The United States and Great Britain and led a grouping of nations in what was dubbed the "coalition of the willing". The stated justification for going to war was Iraqi possession of weapons of mass destruction, the need to depose the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein and to curtail his support of terrorist organisations.

On 1st May 2003 George W. Bush landed on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln in a military jet. He gave a speech announcing the end of major combat operations in the Iraq war. Clearly visible in the background was a banner stating "Mission Accomplished."

Two years later the body count of Iraqi civilians is at least 27,000, and rising with the daily occurrence of violent bombings. In The Real War on Terror season, Dispatches exposes both the human and political costs of the invasion of Iraq.