IMAGES: US readies to leave behind war footprints in Iraq

United States President Barack Obama announced last month that American troops would fully withdraw from Iraq by the year end, as scheduled by a security pact signed between the two countries in 2008.

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The US military is vacating former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's ornate palaces at its war headquarters in Baghdad and will turn the property over to Iraq next month.

The war in Iraq began on March 2003 with the US invasion of Iraq under former president George W Bush on the pretext of a possibility that the Arab country was employing weapons of mass destruction which threatened their security and that of American allies. However, no concrete evidence has been found yet to endorse US claims over Iraq's WMDs.

Reports suggest that till day approximately 178,000 people have lost their lives in the Iraq War.

Some US officials also accused Iraqi President Saddam Hussein of harbouring and supporting Al Qaeda, but no evidence of a meaningful connection was ever found.

Other reasons for the invasion given by the governments of the attacking countries included Iraq's financial support for the families of Palestinian suicide bombers, Iraqi government human rights abuse, and an effort to spread democracy to the country.

The invasion of Iraq led to an occupation and the eventual capture of President Saddam, who was later tried in an Iraqi court of law and executed by the new Iraqi government.

Violence against coalition forces and among various sectarian groups soon led to the Iraqi insurgency, strife between many Sunni and Shia Iraqi groups, and the emergence of a new faction of Al Qaeda in that country.

In late February 2009, President Barack Obama announced an 18-month withdrawal window for combat forces, with approximately 50,000 troops remaining in the country "to advise and train Iraqi security forces and to provide intelligence and surveillance."

However on October 21, 2011, Obama announced that all US troops and trainers would leave Iraq by the end of the year, bringing the U.S. mission in Iraq to an end.