Saddam Hussein's Record of Infamy Ends

On Bush's orders, U.S. forces invaded Iraq on March 20, 2003. Hussein's army -- including his once-powerful Republican Guard -- quickly crumbled. By April 7, American troops were in the heart of Baghdad, and Hussein fled as his government folded. Two days later, jubilant Iraqis, aided by U.S. Marines, pulled his statue down from a central plaza.

Hussein went into hiding, growing a bushy beard and moving from place to place, often by ordinary taxi.

In July 2003, his two sons, Uday and Qusay, were killed when U.S. troops raided their hideout in the northern city of Mosul.

Five months later, on Dec. 13, 2003, Hussein himself was captured by U.S. troops on a farm near his hometown of Tikrit.

Haggard and disheveled, his beard streaked with gray, he was found in a hole in the ground near a farmhouse in the village of Dawr, about nine miles south of Tikrit. Although he was wearing a pistol when he was caught, he did not try to resist, and he appeared "disoriented" and "bewildered" as he was taken into custody, U.S. officers said. One general described him as being "caught like a rat."

Discovered in a farmhouse where Hussein had been staying nearby were two AK-47 assault rifles, as well as $750,000 in U.S. $100 bills, a U.S. commander said. A white-and-orange taxi was parked nearby.

Although U.S. search teams never found the suspected stockpiles of banned weapons of mass destruction or evidence of a continuing nuclear weapons program, President Bush insisted that he had been right to remove Hussein from power.

Denouncing him as a "madman" who committed atrocities against his own people and constituted a "clear threat" to the United States, Bush asserted repeatedly, "The world is better off without Saddam Hussein."