The Battle of Haditha Dam took place in 2003. During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, United States Army Rangers seized the Haditha Dam on 1 April in order to prevent it from being destroyed. Destruction of the dam would have significantly affected the functioning of the country's electrical grid and could cause major flooding downstream from the dam. Background One of the largest dams in the world, the Haditha complex provided fully one-third of the Iraqi electrical grid load in 2003. Located northwest of Baghdad, the dam was built during the Cold War to provide hydroelectric power for central Iraq, including Baghdad. The Haditha Dam also controlled the flow of the Euphrates into the lower Euphrates/Tigris River Valley. During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, United States Army Rangers seized the Haditha Dam on 1 April in order to prevent it from being destroyed. The destruction of the dam would have significantly affected the functioning of the country's electrical grid and could cause major flooding downstream from the dam. Along with providing flood control and a third of Iraq's electrical generation capacity, the dam provided the only other crossing of the Euphrates River west of Baghdad. An additional bonus would be by capturing both locations the Iraqi Army would be drawn away from their defense of Baghdad, which was under assault by the US Army V Corps. However, the Iraqi high command were not ignorant of the dam's strategic value, and they had stationed a powerful defensive force in and around the Haditha Dam. The Battle The battle started on 24 March 2003 when Rangers from 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, conducted a combat parachute drop onto H-1 Air Base, securing the site as a staging area for operations in the west. Delta Force recce operators drove through Iraqi lines around the Haditha Dam on customised ATVs, marking targets for Coalition airstrikes resulting in the eventual destruction of a large number of Iraqi armored vehicles and antiaircraft systems. The Delta team's reconnaissance of the dam indicated that a larger force would be needed to seize and hold it, so a request was made and approved for a second Delta squadron from Fort Bragg to be dispatched with a further Ranger battalion, along with M1A1 Abrams main battle tanks from C Company, 2nd Battalion 70th Armored Regiment. C-17s flew the tank company and Ranger battalion from Talil to H-1 and then to