lynsey addario, photographer

Middle East: Iraq War

2003-2004

Soldiers of the 173rd Airborne Division walk in front of a poster of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussain in front of the Kirkuk Governate building two days after it fell from Iraq Central Government rule, April 12, 2003. Roughly twenty days after the start of the US-lead war on the regime of former Iraq leader Saddam Hussain, cities are falling out of his control, and the 173rd Airborne has been sent in to maintain order in the city of Kirkuk.
  
  
United States Marines take a break to shave in front of one of Saddam Hussain's presidential palaces the day Tikrit fell from Republican Guard rule in Iraq, April 15, 2003. As the regime of Saddam Hussain fell across Iraq, soldiers and civilians pillaged his palaces across the country, revealing luxurious accomodations and major weapons caches.
     
  
raqi Women scramble for cover as American soldiers from the First Cavalry Division fire gas onto a desperate crowd during a propane distribution in Sadr City, Bagdad, as a crowd of thousands of Iraqi civilians pushing to get aid grows more and more unruly in Iraq, May 28, 2003. Sadr City was considered one of the most dangerous, anti-American places in Bagdad, and for weeks after the war, Americans were not able to patrol the streets there, nor hand out aid, water, or gas to the people because it would compromise their safety.
  
Thousands of Iraqis fight to enter the Bank on one of the two days per week the bank is open in the neighborhood of Al Karrada, in Baghdad, June 25, 2003. Months after the end of the war, Iraqis are increasingly more frustrated with the poor quality of life in Baghdad: water and electricity shortages, and long lines for money, petroleum, propane, among other necessities.
  
An Iraqi woman walks through a plume of smoke rising from a massive fire at a liquid gas factory as she searches for her husband in the vicinity of the fire in Basra, Iraq, May 26, 2003. The fire was allegedly started by looters picking through the factory, and residents in the vicinity feared the explosion of the four liquid gas tanks on the premisis. Weeks after the end of the war, looting continues to be one of the main problems for both Basra and Bagdad cities as coalition forces struggle to get life back to normal.
     
  
Iraqi women weep as they walk along rows of remains of bodies, some looking for loved ones, discovered in a mass grave South of Bagdad, and lied out in a building in Iraq, May 29, 2003. Since the fall of Saddam Hussain's regime in Iraq, thousands of bodies have been pulled from mass grave sites around the country, evidence of the brutal, bloody regime of the former dictator.
  
Iraqi men and women gather in a mass grave site as hundreds of bodies are pulled out of the earth and identified in the village of Abu Hajil, Iraq, some 50 miles south of Bagdad, May 16, 2003. Since the fall of former Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussain, dozens of mass graves sites have been identified and unearthed, revealing the tyraany of the former dictator's leadership.
   
Soldiers with the 4th ID, 3rd Brigade, from the 1st Batallian-68th Armored Regiment detain an Iraqi found on a compound American intelligence indicated belonged to members of the Bathist party and supporters of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussain in the early hours of the morning roughly 30 km North of Baghdad near Balad, June 29, 2003. US troops acted as part of a massive, across the 4th infantry division series of night raids and patrols that took place in the early morning hours of the 29th as a way of showing their force and retalliating against the recent spate of attacks against US troops throughout Iraq. The area of the raids encompassed the area north of Baghdad as far as a bit past Tikrit, along the Tigris, where there are presumed to be Bathist strongholds, and deep-roted support for former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussain.
     
  
Soldiers with the 4th ID, 3rd Brigade, from the 1st Batallian-68th Armored Regiment detain an Iraqi found on a compound American intelligence indicated belonged to members of the Bathist party and supporters of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussain in the early hours of the morning roughly 30 km North of Baghdad near Balad, June 29, 2003. US troops acted as part of a massive, across the 4th infantry division series of night raids and patrols that took place in the early morning hours of the 29th as a way of showing their force and retalliating against the recent spate of attacks against US troops throughout Iraq. The area of the raids encompassed the area north of Baghdad as far as a bit past Tikrit, along the Tigris, where there are presumed to be Bathist strongholds, and deep-roted support for former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussain.
   
Shiite Muslims morn the death of Ahmed al-Waeli, a prominent cleric who died in Baghdad of natural causes less than a week after his return from exile, behind a flag of martyred Shiite leader Mohamed Al Sadir at a mosque in Sadir City, Baghdad, Iraq, July 16, 2003.
   
Shayma Hamid, center, 21, reads a passage in the Koran traditionally read by brides before their weddings while being greeted and cheered by relatives at Sahyma's home during her wedding day, February 20, 2004, in Baghdad, Iraq. With the start of Muharram, a muslim holiday which traditionally forbids weddings for one month, hundreds of Iraqis scrambled last week to get married.
     
  
A young bride waits for her family to pick her up from the beauty parlour before her wedding, February 18, 2004, in Baghdad, Iraq. With the start of Muharram, a muslim holiday which traditionally forbids weddings for one month, hundreds of Iraqis scrambled last week to get married.
  
Shayma Hamid, center, 21, and Ali Dakhil, left, 26, are greeted and cheered by relatives at Sahyma's home the night before their wedding day, February 19, 2004, in Baghdad, Iraq. With the start of Muharram, a muslim holiday which traditionally forbids weddings for one month, hundreds of Iraqis scrambled last week to get married.
   
Shayma Hamid, 21, is led out of her bedroom on her wedding day before her fiance comes to pick her up, February 20, 2004, in Baghdad, Iraq. With the start of Muharram, a muslim holiday which traditionally forbids weddings for one month, hundreds of Iraqis scrambled last week to get married.
     
  
Abu Taeeb speaks answers his telephone minutes after an unidentified explosive device blew through the roof of bedroom in a guard shack next to the Sheraton Hotel in Baghdad, April 9, 2004. One year after the fall of Baghdad, choas and violence are raging across the country, calling into question the occupation of Iraq, and the feasibility of a June 30, 2004 handover to Iraqi rule.
   
Iraqi children prepare looted cables to melt down and sell on the street for money near the town of HIlla, south of Bagdad, May 16, 2003. Since the fall of the regime lead by former Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussain, Bagdad has seen high crime rates and major shortages in Petroleum, electricity, and water.
   
Iraqi men bury the bodies of five men allegedly killed in an explosion in a mosque in Fallujah, some 30 km west of Baghdad, July 1, 2003, in Iraq. Iraqis in Fallujah claim that American forces dropped a missile on the mosque around 11pm the night before, and the case is currently under investigation. Tensions continue to rise as Iraqis grow more disillusioned with the American occupation of Iraq: attacks against coalition forces increase daily, and Americans troops are detaining and accidentally killing innocent Iraqis in tandem with the increase of attacks against them.
     
  
Relatives of Salman Nama Naser, 63, mourn his death at their home in Sadr City, following a day of battle between followers of Iraqi Shiite followers of Muqtada Al Sadr and coalition forces, April 5, 2004. Dozens of Iraqis have died, as well as at least 9 coalition troops in nationwide fighting across Iraq.
   
  
A relative closes the eyelids of a man killed in a shoot out at a PUK checkpoint in Suleimaniya, Northern Iraq, during the funeral March 5, 2003. The five men had long beards, and were accused of being Ansar fundamentalists.
     
  
Iraqi Shiites slice their heads with a sword while celebrating the Shiite tradition for the holiday of Ashorra, during Muharram, March 2, 2004 outside the Khadamiya Mosque in Baghdad, Iraq. Shortly after this photograph was taken, simultaneous explosions ripped through crowds of worshippers Tuesday at Shiite Muslim shrines in Baghdad and the city of Karbala, killing at least 143 people on the holiest day of the Shiite calendar.
   
An Iraqi Policeman stands guard on a roof in a sandstorm at the Baghdad Academy for Police officers in Iraq, February 15, 2004