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Feb. 6, 2003 - In the runup to war, Colin Powell goes before the UN with vials of white powder and other props, claiming that Iraq is always "45 minutes away" from launching WMD at its neighbors.

http://images.icnetwork.co.uk/upl/mirror/feb2003/0/5/00027E9E-123D-1E42-922480BFB6FA0000.jpg

Feb. 22, 2006 - The famous golden dome of Samarra's al-Askari shrine is blown up. Reprisal attacks between Sunnis and Shiites kills over 500 in the next several days.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/06/middle_east_enl_1140622457/img/1.jpg

Dec. 21, 2004 - A suicide bomber managed to get inside the US military's Forward Operating Base Marez, near Mosul, nothern Iraq. The explosion kills 14 troops, 4 US military contractors, and 4 Iraqi soldiers.

http://community.theolympian.com/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=album159

March 31, 2004 - Four contractors with Blackwater USA are captured and lynched as they drive through the city of Fallujah. Their lynchings scuttle the Marine Corps pacification plan for the region, and lead to the first Battle of Fallujah.

http://extremecatholic.blogspot.com/images/fallujah-bridge.jpg

May 1, 2003 - George Bush lands on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, and declares "Mission Accomplished" while standing in front of a banner with the same message.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_Accomplished

August 31, 2005 - Rumors of a suicide bomber spark a stampede on Baghdad's narrow Al-Aaimmah bridge, where 1 million Shias had gathered to march toward the shrine of Imam Musa al-Kazim, a Shia holy figure. Over 1,000 are crushed to death.

http://english.people.com.cn/200509/01/images/0831_D00.jpg

April 10, 2003 - Ayatollah Abdul Majid al-Khoei, an exiled Iraqi cleric and CIA operative, returned to the Shia holy city of Najaf to take a position of religious and political influence. After a meeting at the Imam Ali Mosque with a Baath-party installed cleric, both are stabbed to death by a mob of Sistani supporters. This early fuckup presaged future American mishandling of the Iraqi situation.

Meeting with Tony Blair:

http://media.msnbc.msn.com/j/msnbc/1895000/1895364.standard.jpg

August 1 and August 3, 2005 - On Aug. 1, a group of Ohio-based Marine Corps reservists are ambushed in Haditha, Iraq while conducting counterinsurgency operations. Six die. Two days later, 14 more troops from the same Ohio-based group are blown up in the biggest IED attack of the Iraq war. Their amphibious vehicle is shredded. These 20 deaths in 2 days begin to turn public opinion in Ohio against the war for the first time, according to polls.

http://img.stern.de/_content/54/39/543979/iraq_500.jpg

July 15, 2005 - In one of the more creative and successful suicide bombings of the war, insurgents dressed as Iraqi police hijack a full fuel truck south of Baghdad, then wire it with explosives. It is then detonated in the town square of Musayyib, a small town between Baghdad and Karbala. The huge explosion demolishes a nearby Shia mosque, and kills about 110 people.

http://crisispictures.org/photos/53247915_10.jpg

May 1, 2004 - An ambush on a Salvadoran patrol in Najaf leaves one dead and 12 wounded, and the remaining uninjured soldier is surrounded by a mob of Iraqis. The soldier keeps the mob at bay with ammunition for several minutes. When this runs out, he charges with a combat knife, killing several Iraqis and staying alive until a relief column arrived.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/photo_20040503-104904-9389.htm

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October 26, 2002 - In the first large antiwar protest related to Iraq, several hundred thousand people gather in various cities around the world. In a sign of things to come, anti-capitalist and anti-globalization protestors piggyback on the rallies to publicize their agendas.

http://z.about.com/d/sanfrancisco/1/0/u/A/war_10_26_10.jpg

November 27, 2003 - President Bush is secretly flown into Baghdad before dawn, where he eats with troops at a mess hall next to Baghdad International Airport. It is his first (and as of March 2006) only trip to Iraq.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/11/20031127.html

November 12, 2003 - A suicide carbomber rams into a building in a poorly-guarded Italian military base near Nasiriyah, southern Iraq. Nasiriyah had been considered safer than Baghdad. 19 Italians are killed, along with 8 Iraqis.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1113/p01s04-woiq.html

November 29, 2003 - A convoy carrying 8 intelligence officers from Spain is ambushed south of Baghdad. 7 die, spurring some of the first calls for Spain to withdraw from Iraq.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/11/29/sprj.irq.spaniards.killed

October 9, 2003 - In one of the more personal ambushes of the war, three gunmen knock on the door of Jose Antonio Bernal, a Spanish intelligence officer living in Baghdad. Bernal answers the door in shorts, and manages to flee down an alley before being gunned down.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/10/09/sprj.irq.diplomat/index.html

November 30, 2003 - In an incident later made by the military into a training simulator scenario, a US convoy carrying new bank notes in Samarra is ambushed by a number of unskilled gunmen with small arms. An unclear number of Iraqis are killed in the ensuing firefight; the US military claims 54 militants died, while residents claim a lower death toll, with numerous civilians among them. Several troops are injured.

http://www.kumawar.com/SamarraBankHeist1/overview.php

March 2, 2004 - In one of the biggest series of blasts of the entire war, numerous suicide bombers hit the cities of Karbala and Baghdad during the Shiite Ashura festival. Karbala's Imam Hussein mosque suffers minor damage; the number of dead in both attacks is put as high as 271.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3527221.stm

July 2, 2003 - President Bush is asked about increasing attacks on US troops in Iraq during a White House press conference. He replies, "There are some who feel like that the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is bring them on. We've got the force necessary to deal with the security situation."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-07-02-bush-iraq-troops_x.htm

June 8, 2004 - A mortar round hits a Saddam-era munitions dump south of Baghdad while the dump is being inspected by Polish, Latvian, and Slovakian minesweepers. The resulting explosion kills six troops, and can be heard across the city.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/a/2004/06/08/international0456EDT0463.DTL

November 4, 2004 - The elite Black Watch regiment of the British army is hit by a suicide carbomber while manning a checkpoint near Fallujah. The small regiment had been rotated from southern Iraq to central Iraq in order to assist US troops fighting in Fallujah. Three troops and their Iraqi translator are killed.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3983443.stm

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October 24, 2005 - Insurgents attempt to use waves of truck bombs to bring down the Palestine and Sheraton hotels in Baghdad, home to many western journalists. The outer blast wall is penetrated. However, the final bomb, a cement truck full of explosives, gets tangled in concertina wire, and detonates prematurely. 20 are killed, but no westerners. The dramatic events are captured on video.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,173192,00.html

August 19, 2003 - In one of the earliest bombings against foreign targets in Iraq, a cement truck full of explosives collapses part of the UN's headquarters in Baghdad. The UN's top envoy, Brazilian Sergio Vieira de Mello, survives the initial blast, but dies during attempts to extract him from the rubble. 21 others are also killed.

http://www.smh.com.au/ffxImage/urlpicture_id_1061261161619_2003/08/20/un_iraqbomb.jpg

May 8, 2004 - The decapitated body of missing US citizen Nick Berg is found on a Baghdad overpass. The video of his beheading is one of the first such videos released by insurgents.

http://www.3nailsministries.org/images/nick-berg-photos-3.jpg

April 1, 2005 - One of Iraq's architectural treasures, the ancient spiral Malwiya tower in Samarra, is bombed by insurgents. The 170ft. tower had been used by US troops as a lookout.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4401577.stm

April 6, 2004 - Echo Company of the US Marines is ambushed while patrolling the restive Sunni city of Ramadi. The length and ferocity of the firefight is unprecedented; altogether; 12 Marines die in the engagement. It was the largest firefight up to that point in the insurgency.

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/special_packages/echo_company/

July 13, 2005 - A suicide bomber in a Suzuki rams a group of children gathered around US troops handing out candy in Baghdad's impoverished Shia al-Khalil neighborhood, killing 27 (mostly children) along with one US soldier.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/13/AR2005071300336.html

August 30, 2004 - Three suicide bombers in small passenger cars attack a group of children gathered near a US patrol, killing 42 Iraqis (34 children) and one US soldier. The attack happened as US troops held a ceremony to celebrate the completion of a sewage project in Baghdad's impoverished Shia al-Amal district.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-09/30/content_379247.htm

April 20, 2004 - In one of the war's more humorous incidents, a mortar attack on the Abu Ghraib prison kills 22 inmates and no US soldiers. It is rumored that the attack was designed to facilitate a jailbreak for the inmates inside.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3643151.stm

April 28, 2004 - CBS News broadcasts the now-infamous first set of Abu Ghraib photos. Iraqis and others go nucking futs; a mentally-impaired manwoman from the hills of West Virginia named Lyndie England is later sentenced to jail for them.

http://www.paintitblack.com/lyndie.jpg

April 11, 2003 - In order to help round up key figures from Saddam's collapsed regime, Army Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks announces the release of a deck of 55 playing cards, each with a photo of a regime figure. The majority of the figures are eventually captured; many are later released. The period of their capture coincided with the rise of the non-Baathist Islamist insurgency.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most-wanted_Iraqi_playing_cards

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October 11, 2002 - The Senate passes Public law 107-243, 116 Stat. 1497-1502, one day after it was passed by the House. Known as "The Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002," it was signed on Oct. 16 by President Bush. The final tally? 296-133 in the House, 77-23 in the Senate.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2318785.stm

Full text at:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2319045.stm

September 12, 2004 - After a US tank is set ablaze by a carbomb in Baghdad, journalists and celebrants swarm the scene. A US helicopter then fires a missile into crowd, killing several, including journalist Mazen Al-Tomaizi, whose death is captured on film.

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4&section=0&article=51422&d=13&m=9&y=2004

March 4, 2005 - After being rescued from captivity in Baghdad by Italian intelligence agent Nicola Calipari, journalist Giuliana Sgrena is shot by US troops while riding in a car near Baghdad airport. The troops were guarding a convoy carrying US ambassador to Iraq John Negroponte; Calipari was killed.

http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/Giuliana_Sgrena_car1.jpg

May 17, 2004 - Ezzedine Salim, President of the Iraqi Governing Council (the precursor to the Iraqi government), was blown up by a suicide car bomber near the Green Zone. He was the highest-ranking Iraqi politician to be assassinated. Nine others died in the blast.

http://www.masnet.org/news.asp?id=1218

April 15, 2004 - Defiant Italian security contractor and hostage Fabrizio Quattrocchi is killed by his captors. He is seen struggling against his captors, and famously shouts "Now I will show you how an Italian dies!" before his execution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabrizio_Quattrocchi

June 22, 2004 - South Korean translator and prospective Christian missionary Kim Sun-il is beheaded in Iraq by his captors. His captivity is remarkable due to the extreme pathos of his video appearances, at one point screaming "I don't want to die!" in broken English, while sobbing.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/06/22/iraq.hostage

February 28, 2005 - In one of the biggest carbombings of the entire war, a suicide bomber ploughs a passenger car loaded with explosives into a crowd of police and military recruits waiting to take their medical entrance exams in Hillah. The blast brings down part of a nearby hospital, and kills 125. The family of the Jordanian suicide bomber celebrates his attack, setting off protests in Iraq.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/4304817.stm

January 25, 2003 - A group of prospective human sheilds leaves London for Iraq; about 300 complete the journey. They are stationed around a variety of targets, many of which are quasi-military, and the majority exit Iraq before the bombing begins.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_shield_action_to_Iraq

April 1, 2003 - Fox News correspondant Geraldo Rivera is expelled from Iraq by the Department of Defense after drawing a map of troop positions and future attack plans in the sand on a live television broadcast. Geraldo continues to report on the war from Kuwait.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/03/31/sprj.irq.rivera/

June 28, 2004 - L. Paul Bremer, chief administrator of the Coalition Provisonal Authority, hands over power to the Iraqi Interim Government's new Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. This is done two days ahead of schedule in a private ceremony, in order to thwart disruption by bombers. A flurry of suicide bombs hits Baghdad several days later. President Bush signs the order officializing this event with a handwritten "Let freedom reign!"

http://www.villagevoice.com/blogs/bushbeat/archive/images/let%20freedom%20reign%202%20-%2020040628-9_sovereignty062804-250h.jpg

http://www.foxnews.com/photo_essay/photoessay_48_images/062804_iraq_bremer_allawi2.jpg

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March 23, 2003 - Asan Akbar, a member of the Army's 101st Airborne Division, throws a grenade into a tent full of fellow troops in Kuwait, and fires his rifle at them afterwards. Two die and 14 are wounded in the attack. Akbar, a Muslim convert from Detroit, is arrested, tried, and sentenced to death for the first fragging incident of the war.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asan_Akbar

April 21, 2005 - Insurgents shoot down a helicopter carrying American and Fijian security guards. The lone survivor, an injured Bulgarian pilot, is shot dead on video by insurgents after approaching them for help. 11 die in the attack.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4472199.stm

April 8, 2003 - US missiles hit Al Jazeera's Baghdad offices, killing a Jordanian reporter. That same day, an American tank fires into the 15th floor of the Palestine Hotel, popular with foreign journalists. Two die, including Spanish reporter José Couso. Spanish courts have since sought indictments against the tank crew.

http://www.primeraplana.net/couso/images/josecouso/jose%20de%20noche.jpg

June 24, 2003 - Six British military police are cornered by a mob of 500 in Majar al-Kabir, southern Iraq. The Brits take refuge in a nearby police station, but the building is peppered with small arms fire and torched. All six die.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4817904.stm

April 1, 2003 - Jessica Lynch is retrieved by assorted US special operations troops from a hospital in Nasiriyah, Iraq, after being taken captive a week earlier. Prior to her retrieval, hospital staff had attempted to deliver her to the US military, but abandoned the attempt after their ambulance was fired upon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_Lynch

August 7, 2003 - In the first major carbombing of the war, the Jordanian embassy is hit by a bomb in a minibus. The wreckage was then attacked by gunmen. Though damaged, the building did not collapse; 11 died in the attack.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3131129.stm

August 28, 2003 - In the first ginormous carbombing of the war, a carbomb explodes outside the Shia Imam Ali Mosque in Najaf after Friday prayers. The bomb slices through the dense crowd of worshippers, killing around 100. It also killed Sayed Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, the Shiite leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

http://www.time.com/time/photoessays/iraqmosque/index.html

March 16, 2003 - During an appearance on 'Meet the Press,' Vice President Dick Cheney is asked about how US troops will be recieved by Iraqis after the invasion. He replies: "Now, I think things have gotten so bad inside Iraq, from the standpoint of the Iraqi people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators."

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/bush/cheneymeetthepress.htm

http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2006/02/13/cheneyrifle_wideweb__470x407,0.jpg

April 28, 2003 - Protestors in Fallujah defy a US curfew to gather and rally against the presence of US troops in a local school. Spooked troops open fire into the crowd, setting off a clash. Altogether, 20 protestors died, and Fallujah quickly became a base for the young insurgency.

http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2003/04/1605968.php

November 14, 2004 - Journalist and cameraman Kevin Sites tapes a US Marine shooting a wounded insurgent in a house in Fallujah, setting off an investigation which ultimately clears the soldier. The video is quickly circulated worldwide.

http://www.hotget.com/videocodefun/Viral_Videos-Kevin_Sites_39_Fallujah_Shooting_Video--7217.html

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January 26, 2005 - In the deadliest incident of the entire war for US troops, a helicopter carrying Marines crashes during a sandstorm near Rutbah, western Iraq. 31 troops are killed. Six US troop deaths elsewhere raise the day's total to 37.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/01/26/iraq.main/

March 28, 2004 - L. Paul Bremer, leader of the Coalition Provisional Authority, orders the shutdown of the newspaper Al Hawza for inciting violence against US troops. The paper's publisher, cleric Muqtada al-Sadr protests the move.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/images/nir-al-hawza-2.gif

February 1, 2005 - A post on an Arabic-language website claims that militants have kidnapped a US soldier. In reality, the soldier is 'Cody,' a toy action figure.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6894934/

August 2004 - US troops battle Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army in Najaf after the Mahdi Army tries to take control of the city. Much of the three-week battle takes place in and around the city's vast cemetary; Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani eventually negotiates a truce.

http://www.pigbird.com/images/najaf.jpg

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53557-2004Aug10.html

December 29, 2004 - In one of the more creative insurgent ambushes, a false tip lures over a dozen police toward a house in western Baghdad. A cache of explosives in the house is remotely detonated, flattening the house along with several nearby houses. More than 30 are killed.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/12/30/iraq/main663906.shtml

April 9, 2003 - A large statue of Saddam in Firdus Square, Baghdad, is defaced and toppled by a group of Iraqis and US military personnel. The incident took place across from the Palestine Hotel, at that time the home of many western journalists.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2842.htm

July 22, 2003 - Uday and Qusay Hussein, sons of Saddam, are killed by US troops after holing up in a house in Mosul. Though seen as a milestone at the time, their deaths did not prevent the growth of the young insurgency. Two days later, photos of the dead brothers are released, to squelch conspiracy claims.

http://www.iraq-war.ws/images/1.jpg

December 13, 2003 - Saddam Hussein is captured near Tikrit in 'Operation Red Dawn.' He is discovered in a small cellar, dubbed a 'spider hole' by the media. His medical lice check is broadcast at the same news conference where L. Paul Bremer, head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, famously declares "Ladies and gentlemen - we got him."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capture_of_Saddam_Hussein

October 24, 2004 - In one of the largest of many such attacks, the bodies of 49 Iraqi police recruits and three drivers are found northeast of Baghdad. The recruits were ambushed while being taken back to Baghdad for a leave.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58312-2004Oct24.html

February 1, 2004 - In the largest insurgent bombing to hit Iraqi Kurdistan, two suicide bombers infiltrate gatherings of Kurdistan's two main political parties in Arbil, and detonate themselves inside of the throngs of delegates. About 110 are killed.

http://www.ogrish.com/archives/suicide_bombing_aftermath_scene_in_irbil_iraq_Jul_17_2005.html

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March 30, 2003 - An errant US missile hits a house in Baghdad, setting it on fire. 13 family members die, and the sole survivor, a 12-year-old named Ali Abbas, is badly burned and loses three limbs. His plight becomes one of the early humanitarian stories of the war.

http://www.geocities.com/rab_fw/ali_abbas.jpg

March 30, 2003 - An errant US missile hits a house in Baghdad, setting it on fire. 13 family members die, and the sole survivor, a 12-year-old named Ali Abbas, is badly burned and loses three limbs. His plight becomes one of the early humanitarian stories of the war.

http://www.geocities.com/rab_fw/ali_abbas.jpg

March 20, 2003 - President Bush authorizes the first airstrikes of the 2003 Iraq war. Missiles hit Baghdad in a 'decapitation' strike against 'targets of opportunity.' It is later revealed that none of Iraqi's top leadership was killed in the strikes. Says Bush, "We will accept no outcome but victory."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2866109.stm

July 7, 2004 - Filipino truck driver Angelo de la Cruz is taken hostage after a firefight which killed his Iraqi bodyguard. Philippine president Gloria Arroyo accepts demands for Philippine troops to be withdrawn from Iraq; the small contingent is pulled July 20. de la Cruz is released unharmed the following day. It is the first troop withdrawl in response to hostage taking in Iraq.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/3916349.stm

April 19, 2004 - Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero announces that Spain's 1,300 troops in Iraq will be withdrawn over the following weeks. The left-leaning Zapatero ousted former Prime Minister José María Aznar after the March 11, 2004 Madrid train bombings. He had campaigned partly on the issue of a troop withdrawl from Iraq. It is the largest defection from the US-led Iraq coalition to that point.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3734751.stm

April 6, 2003 - David Bloom, an embedded reporter with NBC, dies of a pulmonary embolism at the age of 39. It is rumored that a smallpox vaccine contributed to his death.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/03/31/health/main547073.shtml

January 30, 2005 - Iraq holds its first legislative elections, in which voters dip their fingers into purple ink after casting their ballots to thwart fraud. Large Sunni boycotts meant that Shia parties won overwhelmingly; about 50 died in suicide bombings and other election day violence, despite a total ban on auto traffic across the country. The images of success temporarily boosted Bush's approval ratings.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_legislative_election%2C_January_2005

October 15, 2005 - In the second major postwar election, Iraqis approve a constitution proposed by the National Assembly which had been elected earlier in the year. Though auto traffic is banned, several Iraqis die in roadside bombings. The results take almost two weeks to tally.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4343946.stm

December 15, 2005 - Iraq's second postwar legislative election was accompanied by a total ban on auto traffic. Sunni parties drop their boycotts, and turnout is higher than in the first legislative election. Though election day is calm, attacks soon resume in Iraq, and Bush's approval remain stagnant.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4531904.stm

March 22, 2005 - US and Iraqi forces claim to have raided and destroyed a large rebel camp near Lake Tharthar, north of Baghdad. An Iraqi interior ministry official claims 85 rebels were killed, and describes it as a "strategic turning point in the fight against terrorists." However, doubts emerge about the figures, and militants are seen near the lake only days after the raid.

http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/1581

November 30, 2003 - In a particularly violent weekend for Asian foreigners, two Japanese diplomats are shot dead with their driver while stopping for food on the way to Tikrit, northern Iraq. Two South Korean electricians are killed, and two injured, in another attack near Tikrit.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3250158.stm

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March 16, 2006 - Kurds angry at corrupt local officials and political parties storm and torch a monument in Halabja, northern Iraq. The monument was built after 5,000 Kurds were killed in a poison gas attack by Saddam's air force in 1988.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4812128.stm

March 23, 2003 - In one of the early fuckups of the war, a convoy of maintenance and supply trucks takes a wrong turn near Nasiriyah, leading to an ambush in which Pvt. Jessica Lynch, SPC Shoshana Johnson, and others are taken captive. Johnson is the first black woman taken hostage in the military history of the United States. She is freed three weeks later. The ambush kills 11 members of the lost convoy, and 18 Marines are later killed in follow-up fighting.

http://www.military.com/NewContent/0,13190,042804_Nasiriyah,00.html?ESRC=army-a.nl

February 23, 2006 - Well-known female Iraqi reporter Atwar Bahjat and two news crew are ambushed, kidnapped, then executed by gunmen as they attempt to cover reaction to the destruction of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, nothern Iraq.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4743050.stm

January 29, 2006 - ABC News reporter and news anchor Bob Woodruff and his cameraman are hit by an IED while traveling in an Iraqi army vehicle near Taji, north of Baghdad. Both suffered major injuries; part of Woodruff's skull was removed to relieve pressure on his brain. ABC News refuses to release video of the incident.

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/IraqCoverage/story?id=1553996&page=1

August 2, 2005 - Freelance US journalist and author Steven Vincent is kidnapped and killed in Basra, southern Iraq. His female translator is shot. His reporting on local corruption is suspected as a factor.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4740759.stm

March 29, 2003 - In the only such incident of the invasion, a seersucker missile fired from inside Iraq hits a mall in Kuwait City. The mall was mostly empty at the time, and only one injury is reported. The feeble attack is seen as a sign of Iraq's military weakness.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/03/28/sprj.irq.kuwait.explosion/index.html

June 25, 2003 - Former Iraqi information minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf (known as 'Baghdad Bob' or 'Comical Ali' in the western press) is taken into US custody then released. He gained fame for his fanciful press conferences during the invastion. He currently resides in the United Arab Emirates.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Muhammad_Saeed_al-Sahhaf

September 30, 2004 - The Iraq Survey Group, assigned by the coalition to find Iraq's WMD, releases the 'Duelfer Report,' its final major report, which finds no evidence of WMD stockpiles in the country.

http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd_2004/

October 19, 2005 - The trial of Saddam Hussein officially begins, with a combative Saddam challenging the Baghdad court's competence and authority.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4356754.stm

November 2, 2003 - In the first major helicopter shootdown of the war, 15 US troops die after their Chinook is hit by hostile fire near Fallujah.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3234543.stm

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June 12, 2003 - In the first pipeline attack of the insurgency, a pipeline carrying crude oil to Turkey is damaged by a explosion.

http://www.iags.org/iraqpipelinewatch.htm

February 14, 2004 - Dozens of gunmen raid Fallujah's main police station, systematically freeing prisoners and executing police officers. 23 police die; survivors condemn the slow American response.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1148650,00.html

March 31, 2003 - Journalist Peter Arnett, on assignment in Baghdad for NBC and National Geographic, gives an interview to Iraqi state TV, claiming that the ongoing US invasion was faltering, and might be abandoned. Arnett is later fired, then rehired by Britain's antiwar Daily Mirror.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/03/31/sprj.irq.arnett/

March 16, 2006 - The US launches Operation Swarmer - a large air and ground operation - to great media fanfare. However, few insurgents are captured, fewer killed, and it becomes clear that the operation was not the 'largest air assault since the initial invasion,' as had been claimed. Critics claim the operation was designed to remove attention from Bush's political troubles.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4817762.stm

April 14, 2003 - The acclaimed Baghdad Museum is sacked and looted during ongoing chaos in postwar Baghdad. Some stolen objects are later recovered; others remain lost or were smashed. Looting also hits hospitals and government buildings.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/photo_gallery/2947511.stm

March 22, 2003 - British reporter Terry Lloyd - one of the only unembedded western journalists in Iraq during the initial invasion - is injured after a US helicopter fires on his car near Basra. He dies after the minibus used to take him to the hospital is fired on by US soldiers.

http://electroniciraq.net/news/1093.shtml

June 25, 2005 - In one of the deadlist attacks in the war for female soldiers, three female US Marines are killed near Fallujah by a suicide bomber. Three male Marines die in the same incident; 14 are injured.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200506/s1400452.htm

June 21, 2004 - Eight British sailors are detained in Iran after getting lost inside the Shatt-al-Arab tidal waterway on the Iran-Iraq border. They are interrogated then released after the British government appeals to Tehran.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3828149.stm

November 9, 2005 - Three Iraqi suicide bombers detonate themselves inside of hotels in Amman, Jordan, killing 57. The wife of one bomber is arrested after her explosives belt fails to detonate. The claimed motive is revenge for US attacks in Iraq.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4433712.stm

April 16, 2005 - Marla Ruzicka, a Green Party peace activist from California, is killed in an explosion on Baghdad's airport road as a US military convoy passed nearby.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7538462/

=====================================================================

March 13, 2006 - A carbomb detonates in a crowded market in Sadr City, a Shia enclave in Baghdad. 50 die. However, unlike earlier bombings against the Shia, this one is followed by a wave of reprisal attacks against Sunni targets - nearly 100 bodies are found around Baghdad over the next 48 hours. One mass grave is located after blood oozes up from the ground.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4804270.stm

May 30, 2005 - In an appearance on Larry King Live, Vice President Cheney remarks that the Iraq insurgency is "in the last throes."

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/30/cheney.iraq/

February 3, 2003 - The British government releases a report entitled "Iraq: Its Infrastructure of Concealment, Deception and Intimidation." This is used in combination with an earlier dossier from September to justify war with Iraq. However, it is later discovered that much of the dossier was plagiarized from unattributed and unreliable sources. The media dub it the "Dodgy Dossier."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodgy_dossier

September 24, 2002 - The British government releases a report titled "Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Assessment of the British Government." This 'September Dossier' is used to make the case for war with Iraq. It contains claims about uranium in Niger, as well as Iraq's 45 minute WMD launch capability, which are echoed by President Bush numerous times in the next several months. On May 29, 2003, BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan gains noteriety after claiming on television that the document had been "sexed-up," according to his military sources.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_Dossier

October 25, 2005 - A car bomb hits Sulaymaniyah, the heavily-guarded second city of Iraqi Kurdistan. The blast damages a Peshmerga building, and kills 12. It is the first such attack in Sulaymaniyah of the entire war.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4374468.stm

January 17, 2006 - Nine Iraqi coastguards are captured by Iran, and one killed, after they attempt to board a ship suspected of smuggling oil near the Iran-Iraq maritime border. Iran denies knowledge of the incident, then later releases the captives after interrogation.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4619604.stm

May 7, 2005 - US Marines launch 'Operation Matador,' a large raid through villages along the Euphrates River near the Syrian border. The operation lasts a week, ends with the death of nine Marines, and the purported death of 125 militants. However, difficulties traveling across the marshy Euphrates may have allowed numerous militants to escape in advance of the offensive.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0519-07.htm

April 2, 2004 - After four US contractors are lynched, US troops surround the city of Fallujah. The siege continues for almost one month; US efforts to take back the city are complicated by the defection of the area's Iraqi security forces. The siege ends on May 1, partly due to political pressure, and an Iraqi general is appointed head of Fallujah's security forces. 40 US Marines and several hundred Iraqis die during the standoff.

http://www.krysstal.com/democracy_iraq_fallujah.html

November 8, 2004 - The US military launches 'Operation Phantom Fury,' designed to retake the city of Fallujah from militants. The fighting lasts about three weeks; about 20% of the city's buildings are demolished. 72 American troops and up to several thousand Iraqis died in the fighting.

http://www.kevinsites.net/2004_11_07_archive.html

November 3, 2004 - Japanese tourist Shosei Koda is beheaded by militants; he entered the country in October because he wanted to "know what was happening there" in relation to US military abuses.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shosei_Koda

=====================================================================

November 10, 2004 - Militants escaping from Fallujah begin to find a new home in Mosul, nothern Iraq. Groups of up to 50 gunmen roam the city, sacking police stations and overtaking government buildings. Iraqi security forces defect en masse. It takes the understaffed US military more than a month to push back the militants.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4009753.stm

October 19, 2004 - Aid worker and longtime Iraq resident Margaret Hassan is kidnapped by militants. Originally born in Ireland, she pleads on video for the UK to withdraw its forces from Iraq. She is later executed by her captors.

http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2004/10/23/margarethassan_wideweb__430x300.jpg

August 6, 2005 - Cindy Sheehan, whose son Casey was killed in Iraq in April 2004, sets up a makeshift camp 3 miles down the road from President Bush's Crawford, Texas ranch. Dubbed 'Camp Casey' by the media, the camp swells to 1,500 protestors, both for and against the war, at its peak. It is largely emptied after Hurricane Katrina hits on August 29.

http://www.indybay.org/uploads/1-camp-casey.jpg

September 16, 2004 - Three contractors - Briton Kenneth Bigley and Americans Eugene Armstrong and Jack Hensley - are kidnapped from Baghdad's Mansoor neighborhood. All three are later beheaded, and all three beheading videos are released to the internet. Numerous websites host the videos despite criticism that such hosting is tasteless.

http://www.warriorsfortruth.com/beheading-video-eugene-armstrong.html

April 9, 2004 - An attack on a convoy of supply trucks near Baghdad International Airport leaves five truck drivers and two US soldiers dead. Others are taken captive; Private Keith Maupin is the only US solider in Iraq officially listed as "missing" (though he is widely presumed dead). Another captive, truck driver Thomas Hamill, escaped from captivity after a US patrol passed near his jail cell in Balad, north of Baghdad.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/10/10/earlyshow/leisure/books/main648445.shtml

March 22, 2003 - In the second major helicopter crash of the invasion, two British Sea King helicopters crash into each other above a British warship. Six British air crew were killed along with one American. The previous day, a Sea Knight helicopter carrying American and British troops crashed in Kuwait, en route to Iraq. 8 Britons and 4 American troops died in that crash.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/2875615.stm

March 23, 2003 - A British Tornado jet was inadvertently hit by a US Patriot missile, killing both aircrew. A US A-10 attack helicopter mistakenly kills another British troop on March 28 after firing on a group of armored vehicles. Altogether, five British troops died from friendly fire during the initial invasion.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/2908017.stm

February 25, 2003 - In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki estimates that several hundred thousand troops would be necessary to keep the peace in postwar Iraq. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz both assail the estimate, calling it "wildly off the mark."

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/attack/consequences/2003/0228pentagoncontra.htm

February 3, 2005 - In a radio interview shortly after a return from a USO tour of Iraq, musician Ted Nugent brags about carrying a Glock handgun with him, and manning a machine gun mounted to a Humvee near Fallujah. His comments attract wide mockery on the internet and elsewhere.

http://www.dangerouslogic.com/archive/000699.html

September 14, 2005 - In one of the largest suicide bomb flurries of the war, nine car bombs and other assorted attacks hit Shia areas of Baghdad; 112 die in a single carbomb in the Kadhimiya district. Altogether, over 180 corpses are recovered.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4244068.stm

=====================================================================

November 17, 2005 - Democratic Representative and Marine Vietnam veteran Jack Murtha calls for the US to begin redeploying troops from Iraq, setting off a political controversey. He introduces a resolution to this effect in the House. Ohio Republican Representative Jean Schmidt creates a furor during a November 18 debate over the resolution by stating "cowards cut and run, Marines never do."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_murtha

December 11, 2005 - Florida teen Farris Hassan, the son of Iraqi immigrants, travels alone to Iraq, where he eventually contacts the Associated Press's Baghdad office. He is then returned by the US military to the US.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farris_Hassan

March 10, 2005 - In one of the largest insurgent attacks on a funeral procession, a suicide bomber infiltrates a crowd of Shia mourners in Mosul, then detonates himself, killing 50. Families of the dead call off plans for a mass funeral procession, for fear of being targeted yet again.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4339333.stm

January 4-5, 2006 - In the biggest attacks since legislative elections in December 2005, a flurry of suicide bombers kill over 200. On January 4, 36 die when a funeral procession is bombed near Baquba. 12 die that same day in Baghdad bombings. On January 5, a suicide bomber in a crowd of police recruits near Ramadi kills over 80. Another bomber detonates near the Imam Hussein shrine in Karbala, killing more than 60. Smaller bombs kill several more.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4583232.stm

June 24, 2004 - In the largest flurry of attacks before the transfer of power to the Interim Iraqi government, suicide bombers kill over 100. Car bombs kill 62 in Mosul, while dozens more are bombed in Ramadi, Fallujah, Baquba, and Baghdad.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3835001.stm

November 8, 2002 - UN Security Council Resolution 1441 is approved unanimously. The resolution threatens Iraq with 'serious consequences' if the country fails to disarm and account for its supposed weapons of mass destruction programs. It is later used as international law justification for the war by the governments of the US and the UK.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UN_Security_Council_Resolution_1441

March 16, 2003 - The leaders of the US, UK, and Spain meet on the Azores Islands in a final summit before the invasion of Iraq. The summit is followed by Bush's 48-hour ultimatum to Saddam Hussein to leave Iraq, issued on March 17.

http://images.icnetwork.co.uk/upl/mirror/mar2003/8/4/000237F4-7C7E-1E75-BC6E80BFB6FA0000.jpg

November 18, 2002 - Hans Blix and a team of UN weapons inspectors arrive in Iraq, the first such team allowed into the country since 1998. Over the next several weeks, his team finds no weapons of mass destruction, but does report Iraqi duplicity and failures to cooperate with inspections. A report issued by the group on January 27 criticizes Iraq's obstructionism.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2488189.stm

December 7, 2002 - In accordance with UN Security Council demands, Iraq hands over a massive, 12,000 page report on the status of its weapons programs. The US claims the report fails to account for all of Iraq's weapons; Hans Blix testifies before the Security Council on December 19, 2002 that the report does not 'create confidence' that Iraq has fully disarmed.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2589149.stm

March 19, 2006 - In an interview, former Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi states that "If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is." It is the first time an Iraqi head of state describes the situation as a civil war.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4821618.stm

=====================================================================

January 10, 2006 - A study by Nobel-prize winning Columbia University economist Joseph Stiglitz, and Harvard lecturer Linda Bilmes, estimates the potential cost of the Iraq war at $1 to $2 trillion to the United States.

http://www2.gsb.columbia.edu/faculty/jstiglitz/Cost_of_War_in_Iraq.pdf

September 15, 2002 - White House economic advisor Lawrence Lindsey estimates the potential cost of a war with Iraq at between $100 and $200 billion; he is promptly contradicted by other White House officials, who claim the war will likely cost $50 - $60 billion. Lindsey is later fired from his post.

http://www.house.gov/schakowsky/iraqquotes_web.htm

March 1, 2003 - The Turkish parliament narrowly passes a measure allowing the US 4th Infantry to invade northern Iraq from Turkish soil, but the vote is voided by the speaker of Parliament due to numerous abstentions. The US abandons its plans to invade from the north, and the 4th Infantry eventually arrives in Iraq in April. Turkey forgoes an aid package as a result.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2818193.stm

April 24, 2004 - In the largest bombings to hit the Shia city of Basra, southern Iraq, a series of explosions hits police stations, destroying passing buses in the process. About 75 die in the attacks.

http://browndailysqueal.com/archives/2004-04-21T161155Z_01_GALAXY-DC-MDF544625_RTRIDSP_2_NEWS-IRAQ-DC.jpg

November 18, 2005 - In one of the largest mosque bombings of the war, two Shia mosques are hit by suicide bombers in the small town of Khanaqin, near the Iranian border. About 75 die.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4448798.stm

December 19, 2004 - Coordinated bombs hit the Shia holy cities of Najaf and Karbala. In Najaf, a bomb near the Imam Ali shrine kills more than 50. In Karbala, a bomb at a bus station kills 15.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-12/21/content_401790.htm

October 27, 2005 - A roadside bomb kills Army Col. William H. Wood and two other soldiers. Wood is the highest-ranking American soldier to die in combat in Iraq (as of March 2006).

http://www.williamwwood.org/

February 12, 2006 - Video of British troops beating and humiliating rioting youths in Amara, southern Iraq, is released by a British media outlet. The video, taken in 2004, strains relations between British forces and local governments; roadside bombs kill two British troops in Amara on February 28, 2006.

http://www.indybay.org/news/2006/02/1803452.php

October 26, 2004 - International Atomic Energy Agency officials tell the UN Security Council that almost 350 metric tons of high explosives are missing from the al-Qaqaa weapons facility south of Baghdad. US officials scoff at the claims, and assert that Saddam had moved the explosives before the war. However, ABC News later broadcasts images from April 2003 showing the explosives in al-Qaqaa's bunkers, being inspected by US troops.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3950493.stm

May 5, 2005 - President Bush formally demotes Brigadier General Janis Karpinski down to Colonel. This follows her relief from command of the 800th Military Police Brigade on April 8, 2005. She had famously toured the Abu Ghraib prison with Donald Rumsfeld in September 2003 to point out Saddam Hussein's abuses, before being felled by the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal of April 2004.

http://growabrain.typepad.com/growabrain/images/rumsfeld.jpg

=====================================================================

January 29, 2002 - President Bush dubs Iran, Iraq, and North Korea parts of the 'Axis of Evil' during his State of the Union Address, causing some to speculate that an attack on Iraq was already in the planning stages.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/01/20020129-11.html

January 24, 2006 - A low-level warrant officer is sentenced to 60 days' house arrest for the asphyxiation death of an Iraqi General during an interrogation in late 2003, near the Syrian border. The light sentence and lack of court martials among higher-ranking personnel was repeatedly criticized in the Arab and Iraqi press.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4642596.stm

June 7, 2005 - An Army captain and a First Lieutenant are killed at a base near Tikrit after a lower-ranking soldier lobs a grenade between them; it is the second such fragging incident in the US military since the war began.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8246860/

May 4, 2004 - Major General Antonio Taguba releases his report on the Abu Ghraib scandal, finding fault with the chain of command and the lack of discipline among troops. The Taguba report becomes the basis for numerous post-Ghraib reforms.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4894001/

September 29, 2005 - Three car bombs hit a market, a bank, and a police station in Balad, north of Baghdad. The death toll from the attack eventually rises to nearly 100.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4295250.stm

May 11, 2005 - Coordinated car bombs in Tikrit and Hawija, north of Baghdad, kill over 70, and demolish a vegetable market.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7777352/

May 4, 2005 - The largely peaceful Kurdish city of Erbil is hit by a suicide bomber; the bomber detonates himself in the middle of a crowd of police recruits, killing more than 60.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/05/04/iraq.main/index.html

August 1, 2004 - In some of the worst violence against Iraq's small Christian minority, five churches in Baghdad and Mosul are heavily damaged by bombs; more than a dozen die in the attacks.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/3526358.stm

November 1, 2005 - The southern Iraqi city of Basra, controlled by Shia militias and largely free of the type of violence common in central Iraq, is hit by a car bomb in a busy commercial district during Ramadan. 20 die.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/05/middle_east_enl_1130791266/html/1.stm

July 28, 2004 - In one of the largest attacks since the handover of power in June 2004, a suicide car bomber swerves into a crowd of police recruits in Baquba, north of Baghdad. More than 70 die.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/3932375.stm

=====================================================================

May 20, 2004 - US and Iraqi forces raid the offices of Ahmed Chalabi, former CIA operative, a day after the US government halted payments to Chalabi for the intelligence he provided. The Iraqi exile had previously been given an important position in the provisional Iraqi government by the US. Critics accuse Chalabi of creating sensational and false stories of WMD stockpiles in Iraq; the US now accuses him of having an improper relationship with the Iranian government.

http://www.counterpunch.org/chalabi05202004.html

July 21, 2005 - Two Algerian diplomats are kidnapped in Baghdad; they are executed one week later. Their kidnapping is one of a series of kidnappings targeting diplomats in Baghdad. On July 5, a diplomat from Bahrain was shot during a kidnap attempt. On July 2, Egypt's ambassador to Iraq Ihab al-Sherif is kidnapped and later killed. Sherif is (as of March 2006) the highest-level hostage executed in Iraq. Diplomats from Pakistan and Bangladesh are also attacked. Algeria closes its embassy after the kidnappings; US troops begin to provide protection to foreign diplomats.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4703317.stm

May 11, 2003 - Retired US Army General Jay Garner steps down from his post as head of the Coalition Provisional Authority. His resignation follows weeks of lawlessness and looting in Baghdad and elsewhere. Previously, from January to April 21, 2003, he had been in charge of the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, the predecessor to the CPA. He is replaced by L. Paul Bremer.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3239166.stm

July 7, 2003 - Army General John Abizaid, an Arabic speaker of Lebanese descent, replaces the retiring General Tommy Franks as commander of the United States Central Command (CENTCOM), the combat command which oversaw the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3003604.stm

April 5-6, 2005 - After months of wrangling punctuated by car bombs and continued violence in Iraq, the Iraqi National Assembly (elected in January 2005) declares its president and prime minister. Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shia and former exile under Saddam's regime, is named Prime Minister, while a Kurd, Jalal Talabani, is named President. Talabani is also a founder of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of Kurdistan's main political parties. He succeeds Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawer, President under the interim government. Jaafari succeeds Iyad Allawi. However, their appointments do not dampen the insurgency.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4493999.stm

September 25, 2003 - Aqila al-Hashimi, one of three female members of the Iraq Interim Governing Council, dies five days after an assassination attempt. She is the first member of the council to be assassinated.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3131424.stm

May 12, 2003 - Clare Short, the Secretary of State for International Development in UK Prime Minister Tony Blair's cabinet, resigns due to misgivings over the Iraq war. The Labour Party politician excoriates Blair after her resignation.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2835059.stm

April 4, 2003 - In an apparent effort to counter rumors of his death, Saddam Hussein makes an appearance on Iraqi television, and footage is shown of Hussein walking among a crowd of supporters in a Baghdad neighborhood. Public appearances by Hussein are extremely rare.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/saddam_04-04-03.html

November 20, 2005 - Rumors circulate in Arab and western media that terror suspect Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had been killed in a firefight in Mosul. After a period of uncertainty, later investigations find no evidence to this effect. It is the most credible and longest-lived of many such Zarqawi death or capture rumors.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1132475589568&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull

April 28, 2005 - After litigation and numerous Freedom of Information Act requests, the Pentagon releases several hundred photos of caskets and honor guard ceremonies for slain soldiers. The issue of casket photos had recurred since March 2003, when the Bush administration made it policy not to release such photos, or allow media coverage of caskets returning to Dover Air Force Base. The Senate backed this policy in a vote on June 23, 2004.

http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB152/index.htm

=====================================================================

January 22, 2003 - Maimed British war hero Simon Weston appears in Britain's antiwar Daily Mirror, calling for opposition to the upcoming war with Iraq. Weston, badly burned during the Falkland Islands war, assails the lack of proof of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs.

http://images.icnetwork.co.uk/upl/mirror/jan2003/1/6/00086C5A-497F-1E2E-896C80C328EC0000.jpg

June 21, 2005 - Zalmay Khalilzad, a US diplomat born in Afghanistan, becomes the US ambassador to Iraq, relinquishing the post of ambassador to Afghanistan. He replaces the outgoing ambassador John Negroponte, whose ties to human rights abuses during his tenure as ambassador to Honduras in the 1980's had been criticized.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4736394.stm

December 19, 2004 - In a change of policy, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announces that he will personally sign condolence letters to families of US troops killed in action. He had been criticized for previously using a machine to stamp his signature on such letters.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/scfcn/CTVNews/20041219/rumsfeld_condolenceletter-20041219/World/

January 31, 2005 - The Special Inspector-General for Iraq Reconstruction - a US official - releases a report which finds that $9 billion in reconstruction funds had been lost or mismanaged. The funds had been allocated by the US government.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4224661.stm

November 6, 2005 - An audit by the UN's International Advisory and Monitoring Board finds that Halliburton overcharged Iraq for by least $208 million for a variety of overpriced or undocumented expenses, and calls on the US to reimburse that amount to the Iraqi government. It is one of the more damning reports out of several fraud inquiries into Halliburton and its subsidiaries related to work done in Iraq.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4411366.stm

November 13, 2005 - 170 starved and abused detainees are found in an Iraqi Interior Ministry building by US troops. Though it is the largest such discovery, allegations of other such facilities emerge. Many of the detainees were Sunnis suspected of supporting the insurgency.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4440134.stm

March 8, 2006 - A group of 50 men are abducted from the compound of a private security firm by men dressed as Iraqi police. The al-Rawafed Security Company, a largely Sunni agency, was raided before its employees were taken away in trucks.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4788626.stm

November 21, 2004 - Reporters are shown the remains of an alleged "torture room" used by militants in Fallujah. The room contains cages, shackles, bloody knives, and videos of abuses.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/11/22/MNGQR9VIMD1.DTL

May 3, 2005 - US officials claim to have intercepted a letter from a terror cell leader in Iraq to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The writer of the letter complains of 'low morale' among fighters. US officials claim the author is Abu Asim al-Qusaymi al-Yemeni, who was detained in April 2005 after a Baghdad raid. However, this is never fully ascertained, and doubts swirl over the nature of the letter as the insurgency continues.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-1596751,00.html

November 27, 2005 - A video linked to the private security firm Aegis emerges on the internet; it depicts security guards in Baghdad firing at vehicles in seemingly random fashion. It leads to widespread criticizm in the British and Iraqi media.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/11/27/wirq27.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/11/27/ixworld.html

=====================================================================

March 21, 2003 - The White House, responding to criticism that the US and UK were "going it alone" in Iraq, releases a list of 48 countries which President Bush dubs the "coalition of the willing." Most of the nations listed do not contribute ground troops to the operation, and in many, public opinion is strongly opposed to the invasion.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/3b/Original_coalition.JPG

February 13, 2002 - In a Washington Post editorial titled "Cakewalk in Iraq," Pentagon Defense Policy Board member Ken Adelman writes that "I believe demolishing Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A1996-2002Feb12?language=printer

October 14, 2004 - In the first major attack inside Baghdad's Green Zone, a suicide bomber detonates himself near a cafe, killing four Americans and six Iraqis.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/3744520.stm

November 26, 2004 - A mortar round hits inside the Green Zone in Baghdad, landing on top of a group of Nepalese ex-Gurkhas working as security contractors. Four Gurkhas die in the explosion.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/11/26/iraq/main657870.shtml

May 31, 2005 - The kidnapped governor of Iraq's western al-Anbar province, Raja Nawaf Farhan al-Mahalawi, is found dead after a gunbattle between US troops and militants in Qaim, near the Syrian border. The governor died of blunt force trauma to the head, possibly caused by falling debris from an explosion.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/31/AR2005053100204.html

May 26, 2005 - US and Iraqi troops launch Operation Lightning in Baghdad, a major deployment of checkpoints and troops designed to put pressure on terrorists operating inside the Iraqi capital. Though over 1,200 arrests are made, the operation ends the following week without putting an end to Baghdadi terrorism.

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/1537

May 23, 2003 - L. Paul Bremer signs an order titled "The Dissolution of Entities," which officially dissolves Iraq's military and defense ministry. It is later criticised as a major blunder and factor behind the growth of the insurgency.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/20/AR2005112001054_pf.html

June 28, 2003 - L. Paul Bremer and other US officials cancel municipal elections and plans for local self-rule in Iraq, choosing instead to install US-friendly leaders until an Iraqi government is installed. The decision attracts immediate criticism in the fledgling private Iraqi media.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A42905-2003Jun27?language=printer

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=383401&forum_id=2#5380613)

he just said so yesterday!

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=383401&forum_id=2#5380624)

It is good to see you back in form.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=383401&forum_id=2#5382004)

So the question is, what the hell do we do now? Pull out and basically let the place self destruct and serve as a terror breeding ground, or commit more troops and capital and entrench indefinitely?

Now that our fuckwit Prez has committed us, I think we need to stay.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=383401&forum_id=2#5382316)

I think the course now is to draw back US troops, let Iraqi troops do the fighting, and let Iraq slowly become an Iranian proxy dominated by Shiite militias.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=383401&forum_id=2#5383190)

We might as well keep the troops there.

You realize that you should have called this "Petrospective".

Good reading:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/03/19/INGMIHNEHC44.DTL&type=printable

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=383401&forum_id=2#5383221)