When the U.S. invasion of Iraq began, NPR's Mideast editor Larry Kaplow was a reporter in Baghdad. Looking back now, he writes that the signs and warnings of the chaos to come were all too clear then.

BAGHDAD -- In the chaotic, hopeful April of 2003, Baghdad's Karrada district was one of those neighborhoods where residents showered flowers on U.S. forces entering the capital.

The Baghdad I knew: Before and after the fall by Jeff Severns Guntzel 04/12/2011 02/02/2012. ... Until the war in 2003, those sanctions seemed to be about the worst thing that could happen to Iraq.

A few were here before, in the first Gulf War, like Gunnery Sgt. Mark Wendling. But most of them are young – as young as 19. In these weeks on the battlefield they’ve had to grow up fast.

I was based in Baghdad as a journalist with Cox Newspapers and then Newsweek from 2003 to 2009. I'd already been to Iraq several times in the years before the war, starting in 1998, as a reporter ...

Everyone knows about the looting of Iraq's museums during last year's war. What almost no one knows is that most of the museums' holdings had been stolen and sold years before—and not by mobs of ...

The Battle for Baghdad's Future. Three Years After Its Fall, Capital Is Pivotal to U.S. Success in Iraq, Officers Say. April 8, 2006. By John Ward Anderson. and ...

Before the US-led invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq in 2003, Mohamed al-Azawi worked as a university professor in Baghdad. For security reasons, he was forced to leave his wife and ...

BAGHDAD (AP) — A dozen masked men jump out of two SUVs and a white pickup and storm a KFC in Baghdad, smashing everything in sight before fleeing the scene. A few days earlier, similar violence ...

A dozen masked men jump out of two SUVs and a white pickup and storm a KFC in Baghdad, smashing everything in sight before fleeing the scene. A few days earlier, similar violence played out at Lee ...