No End in Sight - Iraq's Descent Into Chaos

On the 19th of March 2003, forces from the United States and a handful of allied nations invaded Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein from power. American military leaders expected the conflict to last no more than a few months and President George W. Bush declared that major military operations were over less than two months later.

However, Iraq soon became a dangerous quagmire for American forces and, near the end of 2006, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, one of the key architects of America’s strategy in Iraq, resigned from office due to public outcry. Bush then declared he was “rethinking” his plan of attack in Iraq as the nation sank into civil war, with U.S. troops the frequent targets of attacks from both sides.

How and why did America’s leaders decide to invade Iraq? How did they formulate a strategy that went so far wrong? And can anything be done to salvage the situation? Filmmaker Charles Ferguson, a former advisor with the Brookings Institution, examines these questions in No End in Sight, a documentary on the War in Iraq which includes interviews with a number of figures involved in the conflict’s decision-making process, some speaking on-camera about the war for the first time.