This Thursday, March 14, 2013 photo shows a general view of the crossed swords monument at the site of an Associated Press photograph taken by Karim Kadim of U.S. soldiers taken on Nov. 16, 2008. The crossed-sword archways Saddam Hussein commissioned during Iraq?s nearly eight-year war with Iran stand defiantly on a little-used parade ground inside the Green Zone, the fortified district that houses the sprawling U.S. Embassy and several government offices. Iraqi officials began tearing down the archways in 2007 but quickly halted those plans and then started restoring the monument two years ago. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)
This Thursday, March 14, 2013 photo shows a general view of the crossed swords monument at the site of an Associated Press photograph taken by Karim Kadim of U.S. soldiers taken on Nov. 16, 2008. The crossed-sword archways Saddam Hussein commissioned during Iraq?s nearly eight-year war with Iran stand defiantly on a little-used parade ground inside the Green Zone, the fortified district that houses the sprawling U.S. Embassy and several government offices. Iraqi officials began tearing down the archways in 2007 but quickly halted those plans and then started restoring the monument two years ago. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)
In this Saturday, March 16, 2013 photo, street photographer Raad Mohammed poses with a photograph taken by photographer Khalid Mohammed in Baghdad's Tahrir Square showing an Iraqi soldier manning a checkpoint on Friday, June 9, 2006, after the Iraqi capital was subjected to a vehicle ban in an effort to prevent reprisal attacks from suicide car bombs after the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Today, the square is the site of anti-government protests and a place for candidates in the upcoming election to display their campaign posters. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)
In this Saturday, March 16, 2013 photo, shoppers walk in Baghdad's busy shopping district of Karrada, at the same site of an Associated Press photo taken by Hadi Mizban on Monday, Sept. 29, 2008 after a bombing that killed 22 people. Bloody attacks launched by terrorists who thrived in the post-invasion chaos are painfully still frequent, albeit less so than a few years back, and sectarian and ethnic rivalries are again tearing at the fabric of national unity. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)
In this Thursday, March 14, 2013 photo, Hussein, 3, poses in Firdous Square in Baghdad with a photograph taken at the site by Jerome Delay of the Associated Press showing the statue of Saddam Hussein being pulled down by U.S. forces and Iraqis on April 9, 2003. Ten years ago on live television, U.S. Marines memorably hauled down a Soviet-style statue of Saddam, symbolically ending his rule. Today, that pedestal in central Baghdad stands empty. Bent iron beams sprout from the top, and posters of anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in military fatigues are pasted on the sides. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)
In this Wednesday, March 13, 2013 photo, Iraqi policeman Ahmed Naji stands on the grounds of the Iraqi National Museum at the site of an Associated Press photograph by Murad Sezer showing a U.S. Army tank parked outside the Iraqi National Museum in Baghdad on Tuesday, May 6, 2003. Tens of thousands of artifacts chronicling some 7,000 years of civilization in Mesopotamia are believed to have been looted from Iraq in the chaos which followed the the US-led invasion in 2003. Despite international efforts to track items down, fewer than half of the artifacts have so far been retrieved. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)
BAGHDAD (AP) ? To the first-time visitor, Baghdad might seem like a normal city. Well, almost normal: Pockmarked buildings and pervasive checkpoints serve as a stark reminder of the violence that nearly tore the country in the decade following the U.S.-led invasion, which began on March 20, 2003.
Today, the Baghdad Zoo is a popular destination for families wearing their finest clothes and enjoying spring weather before the temperature climbs. Nearly 10 years ago, the zoo's staff fled just before Baghdad fell to U.S. troops. All but 35 of the animals died. Later, an American platoon set up a small base at the zoo, where they protected the facility from looting while it was rebuilt.
Abu Nawas Park, where orphans sniffed glue and slept beneath American tanks, now too is a haven for families and a place for die-hard soccer players to practice in the afternoons.
The Iraqi National Museum lost countless treasures during a chaotic period before Americans moved in to secure it. Today, the grounds are under renovation. Fewer than half of the antiquities have been recovered.
The Karrada district is a bustling commercial hub of shops and restaurants that stay open late into the night. During the bloodiest stretch of the war, these shops were shuttered by sundown.
The Iraqi capital and the people who live here still bear scars, some invisible.
On March 14, 2013, a series of coordinated bombings struck the Justice Ministry and killed dozens. Hours after that attack, a man sat in Firdous Square and watched his three children play, running circles around the pedestal that held Saddam Hussein's statue before U.S. Marines pulled it down. None of the children had even been born when the war began. But when an explosion shook the square from yards (meters) away, they didn't even flinch.
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