Timeline: five years in Iraq
Updated on 15 March 2008
An interactive history of the war in Iraq with links to contemporary video reports, blogs and analysis.
Lindsey Hilsum's Baghdad diary
The wreckage of cars and collapsed buildings was covered in a coating of wet dust. It felt like another world, another planet, a place where nothing looks right any more and no-one can see the future. Nothing was clear. The storm enveloped the city, and we could see only a few yards ahead through the murky half-light.
- Lindsey Hilsum's Baghdad diary
2003
17 March UN weapons inspectors evacuate Iraq having found no concrete evidence of Weapons of Mass Destruction. US issues 48 hour ultimatum on Saddam Hussein to leave Iraq or face war.
20 March War begins. Operation Iraqi Freedom begins. US missile strikes on Baghdad and other targets. US and British special forces advance on strategic oil town of Umm Qasr and along Faw Peninsular. US 3rd Infantry Division starts drive north through western desert and along Tigris river heading for Baghdad. US 1st Marine Division drives north through central lowlands between Tigris and Euphrates Watch the report
8 April Basra officially in British hands. Widespread looting by civilians. British attempts to set up a civilian administration. US marines moving in from East of Baghdad as tanks fight in the centre. US and Kurdish troops advancing on Kirkuk and Mosul in the north.
9 April Fall of Baghdad symbolised by the toppling of statue of Saddam in Tahrir Square.
14 April US announces end of major combat operations in Iraq. Basra secure. Baghdad secure. In the north, Kirkuk, Mosul and Tikrit are under US / Kurdish control. Iraqi resistance crumbles in other areas.
Casualty count (April 2003)
US casualties: 132 killed, 495 injured
UK casualties: 32 killed, 74 injured
Iraqi casualties: 2,320 killed (Coalition estimate)
Iraqi civilians: 7,400 killed¿¿¿(Iraq Body Count)
Journalists: 13 killed; 2 injured; 2 missing
21 April Coalition Provisional Authority set up under UN resolution 1483. All Executive, Legislative and Judicial authority in Iraq is now in 'Coalition hands' although the CPA is created and funded as a division of the US Dept of Defence and US Central Command is responsible for enforcing CPA's authority.
1 May 'Mission Accomplished'. President Bush declares end of major combat operations.
15 May Jack Straw, UK foreign secretary, concedes that weapons of mass destruction may never be found.
24 June Mob descends on police station near Basra. Six Royal Military Police killed.
18 July David Kelly, a Ministry of Defence scientist, is found dead near his home. Dr Kelly is later revealed as source behind BBC report which alleged the government had "sexed up" the threat posed by WMDs in Iraq.
29 August Eighty three civilians killed in Najaf car bomb.
31 October UN pulls out of Iraq citing security concerns.
13 December 'We got him.' Saddam Hussein is captured by US forces in Tikrit.
2004
8 March Interim constitution is finally agreed and signed by Iraqi Governing Council (IGC). Shias and Kurds are heavily represented, Sunnis are not.
10 March Lawyers representing Lord Goldsmith, prevent his advice to the government on the legality of the war being revealed in court.
31 March Four civilian contractors are killed in Fallujah, in the Sunni Triangle, and their bodies hung from a bridge by cheering mobs. US troops retaliate starting what becomes the First Battle for Fallujah (a second, heavier battle breaks out in October).
8 April Heavy fighting in Fallujah leaves 460 Iraqis and 36 Americans dead.
28 April Prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib. Pictures emerge for the first time from the Baghdad prison.
28 May Iraqi interim government set up, headed by Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. US- run Coalition Provisional Authority continues to govern the country alongside this Provisional government.
16 June Commission on Terror Attacks on United States (9/11 Commission) reports that there is "no credible evidence that Iraq and Al- Qaeda co- operated on attacks against the United States".
28 June US formally hands over sovereignty to the Iraqi Interim Govt two days before the June 30 deadline. Two days later, custody rights to Saddam Hussein are handed over to this Iraqi interim govt. His trial begins, under an Iraqi judge and the world's media are prevented from covering the hearing.
14 June Butler Report clears Tony Blair of any deliberate attempt to "mislead" the country before the war - but the main thrust of the report seems to tell a different story.
27 August Italian Journalist Enzo Baldoni is reported murdered by his captors in Najaf. He is the 12th journalist to be captured in 2004 alone.
7 September Number of US military dead in Iraq tops 1,000.
17 September After a 15 month search, the Iraq Survey Group's search for Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq concludes that the only chemical or biological agents Saddam Hussein was working on were small quantities of poisons for use in assassinations.
8 October Kidnapped Britain Ken Bigley is confirmed murdered.
7 November Battle for Fallujah. US troops pour into city - 40 miles west of Baghdad - to attack Sunni rebel strongholds. The insurgency there is thought to be headed by senior Al- Qaeda figure Abu Musab Al- Zarqawi.
12 October Study published by The Lancet claims that up to 650,000 Iraqi civilians have died since the start of the war in 2003. The study was carried out in three randomly chosen neighbourhoods in Baghdad. Watch the report
5 Minute Guide: Attack on Fallujah
The battles in Fallujah were the US's most intense since the Vietnam war. Thousands of civilian homes were destroyed as the US tried to rid the city of Sunni rebels. Conflict was sparked after four US workers were mutilated in the city.
- 5 Minute Guide: Attack on Fallujah
16 November Family of aid worker Margaret Hassan accept that she has probably been murdered at the hands of her captors.
21 Dec Tony Blair flies into Baghdad, the first British PM to visit the city since Stanley Baldwin in 1924. Near Mosul, 24 US soldiers and contractors are killed by a bomb in a crowded mess tent.
2005
26 January US army suffers its worst day since war in Iraq began as 37 troops die in a helicopter crash and wave of insurgent attacks.
30 January An RAF Hercules transport aircraft crashes north of Baghdad, killing up to 15 British service personnel.
13 February Iraq's Shia Muslims win just under half the votes in the country's multi-party elections - this amounts to about four million votes and is the first time in decades that the Shia majority in the population is reflected in government. A coalition led by Grand Ayatollah Ali al- Sistani will fill almost half of the 275 seat National Assembly. A Kurdish alliance comes second with 2.2 million votes leading to uncertainty about how far they will push for autonomy within a Federal state. But only about 2 per cent of eligible voters in Sunni dominated Al- Anbar province voted. Sunnis make up about 20 per cent of the total population, but enjoyed dominance under Saddam Hussein since 1979.
6 April A Kurdish leader, Jalal Talabani becomes Iraq's first democratically elected president.
27 April In London, it emerges that the government's senior law officer, Attorney General Lord Goldsmith, advised Tony Blair that going to war might be illegal under international law in a confidential memo two weeks before the invasion. - Watch the report
17 May At a US Senate Select Committee hearing, Labour MP George Galloway responds furiously to allegations that he profited from the Oil-for-Food programme under Saddam Hussein. The Senate investigation claims that documents prove Galloway was allocated millions of barrels of cheap oil by the former dictator. Galloway uses the occasion to launch a tirade on the US justification for war. - Read the report
20 September Two undercover British soldiers seized by police in Basra are freed when British troops use tanks to break down the walls of the prison where they are being held. Watch the report
19 October Trial of Saddam Hussein begins. The former dictator is charged in connection with the killings of 148 Shias in Dujail back in 1982, the day an assassination attempt was made on his life.
The day they tried to kill Saddam
Saddam Hussein strides through the street, a fixed smile on his face, waving to the ululating, cheering crowd swarming around him. Anxious soldiers push people back with rifle butts.
No wonder.
Maybe less than an hour before, on 8 July 1982, a group of militants had tried to assassinate the Iraqi leader, as he visited the village of Dujail, 35 miles north of Baghdad.
- The day they tried to kill Saddam
26 November British peace activist Norman Kember is taken hostage in Baghdad.
22 December Tony Blair visits Basra and hints that troops could be withdrawn within six months.
2006
31 January Corporal Gordon Alexander Pritchard, 31, is killed in an explosion in Basra province, becoming the 100th member of the British armed forces to die in Iraq since the conflict began.
22 February Attack in Samarra. The golden dome of one of shia Islam's holiest shrine is desecrated. Watch the report
23 March Norman Kember and two Canadian colleagues are freed in a rescue mission led by the SAS.
- Watch the report
13 July Major General John Cooper, British commander of coalition forces in southern Iraq, signs over responsibility for security in Muthanna province to the Iraqis. It is the first province to be returned to full Iraqi control since the US-led invasion more than three years ago.
13 October Army chief of staffs, General Sir Richard Dannatt calls on the army to quit Iraq "sometime soon". Watch the report
FactCheck: does Blair agree with Dannatt?
It was the political equivalent of falling victim to friendly fire - among other remarks, Dannatt told the Daily Mail that Britain should withdraw from Iraq "sometime soon".
But how fair is it for the Blair camp to suggest there was no difference between the Army chief's perceived exasperation with Iraq, and the Prime Minister's seemingly long-held determination to see things through?
- FactCheck: Does Blair agree with Dannatt?
5 November Saddam convicted of crimes against humanity by the court in Baghdad. He is sentenced to death by hanging. Watch the report
6 December Iraq Study Group publishes its recommendations on the future of US involvement in Iraq. "We do not recommend a stay the course solution," it reads. Watch the report
30 December Saddam Hussein is executed by hanging. Mobile phone footage of the event soon emerges. Watch the report
2007
10 January George Bush commits 21,500 more troops to Iraq in the hope of securing the streets of Baghdad from sectarian militants. Watch the report
8 February A leaked memo reveals that the US government flew over $12bn in $100 bills into Iraq during 2003 without any proper controls over how it was spent, the biggest transfer of cash in the history of the Federal Reserve.
Henry Waxman, who is chairing the oversight committee looking at Iraqi reconstruction, said "The numbers are so large that it doesn't seem possible that they're true. Who in their right mind would send 363 tonnes of cash into a war zone?"
Billions of dollars disappeared without trace.
17 May Prince Harry's deployment to Iraq cancelled after Shia extremists claim that they plan to capture him. A British General says he will not put soldiers serving with the Prince at extra risk.
11 August Four British troops die in a week in Basra as a roadside bomb attack kills two and two more are shot dead during routine patrols. The deaths prompt a retired military commander, Col Bob Stewart to tell Radio 4's Today programme that Basra should either be completely retaken or abandoned
16 September Alan Greenspan, until recently America's most powerful economist who served under four different presidents, bluntly claims in his published memoirs that the Iraq war is "largely about oil".
17 November It is revealed that British officials have been negotiating with representatives of Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi army to try and draw it into peace negotiations.
The British commander in Southern Iraq reports that attacks on British and Iraqi forces have fallen by 90 per cent since UK troops pulled out of their last base in the centre of the city in September.
2008
25 January Lord Malloch- Brown, the government's Foreign Office Minister, gives a clear signal that there will be an enquiry into the circumstances surrounding Britain's involvement in the Iraq war.
1 February Senior followers of Moqtada al- Sadr have warned that the Mahdi army will give up their current 6 month ceasefire unless the government takes steps to preventing attacks on its followers.
11 February US Defence Secretary Robert Gates admits that US troop withdrawls may be halted. This would leave 130 000 personnel deployed in Iraq by summer, and President Bush will leave office with the same number in place as before the 'Surge' of January 2007.
18 February The controversial first draft of the Dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, the government's justification for going to war in 2003, is released under the Freedom of Information act.
Written by John Williams, then head of press at the Foreign Office, the report claimed that Iraq was "developing as a priority longer-range missile systems capable of targeting Nato (Greece and Turkey?)" and "covertly attempting to acquire technology and material for use in nuclear weapons".
But later in the document it is admitted that Iraq would "find it difficult to produce fissile material [for nuclear weapons] while sanctions remain in place".
3 March Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad demands the withdrawl of foreign troops from Iraq calling their presence in the region a 'humiliation'. His comments come on a visit to Baghdad, the first by an Iranian premier since the Iran Iraq war of the 1980's.
The 'Fractured Iraq' season
Iraq's growing refugee crisis
Jonathan Miller on the refugee exodus - the strain it's having on neighbouring countries and the shaming figures on refugee acceptance by the UK, the US and other western nations.
America's unlikely ally against al-Qaida
Alex Thomson reports on the Sunni-stronghold of Ramadi where the US has sub-contracted the counter-insurgency fight to a local sheik who had previously been active against the Americans.
Militias thrive in Iraq's civil war
Inside Sunni Adhamiya and the Shia suburb of Sadr City - two of Baghdad's sectarian enclaves.
- The 'Fractured Iraq' season
