Key events in Iraq
2003: INVASION
March 17: President Bush gives Saddam Hussein a 48-hour deadline to give up power.
March 20: The U.S.-led invasion is launched.
May 1: On the USS Abraham Lincoln, under a “Mission Accomplished” banner, Bush declares “major combat operations in Iraq have ended.”
July 13: Governing Council of U.S.-selected Iraqi officials takes office.
Dec. 13: Hussein is captured.
2004: RISE OF INSURGENCY
April: Photos surface of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison.
March 31: Four private security employees are killed in Fallujah and their bodies hung on a bridge. U.S. forces later attack the city in some of the first major urban battles against Sunni insurgents.
June 28: U.S.-led occupation authority turns over formal power to interim government.
September: U.S. military deaths reach 1,000.
Oct. 6: U.S. arms inspector in Iraq finds no evidence that Hussein’s regime produced weapons of mass destruction after 1991.
2005: ELECTIONS
Jan. 30: Iraqis elect National Assembly in the country’s first national elections since Hussein’s fall. Shiite Muslim-dominated coalition wins 48 percent, Kurdish alliance 26 percent. Most Sunni Arabs boycott vote.
April 6: National Assembly elects Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani as president.
Aug. 31: At least 1,000 Shiite pilgrims are killed in a bridge stampede caused by rumors of a suicide bomber in Baghdad.
Oct. 15: Iraqi voters approve constitution in referendum, with strong Shiite and Kurdish support. Sunni Arabs are largely opposed and win a promise that the next parliament will consider amendments.
October: U.S. military deaths reach 2,000.
Dec. 15: Iraqis elect new parliament with Shiite parties winning biggest bloc.
2006: VIOLENCE SPREADS
Feb. 22: In Samarra, suspected Sunni insurgents detonate two bombs inside the revered Shiite Askariya shrine, blowing the top off its landmark golden dome. The attack sharply escalates sectarian bloodshed and increases fears of a civil war.
June 8: American airstrike outside Baqouba kills al-Qaida-linked insurgent leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his spiritual adviser, Sheik Abdul-Rahman.
Nov. 5: Hussein is sentenced to death by Iraqi court.
Dec. 6: The Iraq Study Group calls for a change in U.S. policies in Iraq, saying conditions are “grave and deteriorating.” It recommends a gradual handover of combat role to Iraqi forces.
Dec. 30: Hussein is hanged.
Dec. 31: U.S. troop deaths reach 3,000.
2007: TROOP BUILDUP
Jan. 10: Bush announces that more than 20,000 additional U.S. troops will be sent to Baghdad and Anbar province.
Jan. 16: United Nations reports that 34,452 Iraqi civilians were slain in 2006, nearly three times more than government reports.
June 24: Hussein’s cousin, known as “Chemical Ali,” and two other former regime officials are sentenced to hang for atrocities against Kurds in the 1980s.
Aug. 14: Four suicide bombers hit a Kurdish Yazidi community in northwest Iraq, killing at least 520.
Sept. 10: Gen. David Petraeus tells Congress he envisions the withdrawal of roughly 30,000 troops from Iraq by mid-2008.
2008: DRAWDOWN?
Jan. 9: The World Health Organization and Iraqi government estimate that about 151,000 Iraqis died from violence in the three years after the U.S. invasion.
Jan. 25: Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announces plans for a “decisive” offensive against al-Qaida in Iraq in the northern city of Mosul after two days of bombings kill nearly 40 people.
Feb. 1: Two women carrying explosives enter pet markets in Baghdad, killing nearly 100 people.
Feb. 25: The Pentagon says U.S. troop levels in Iraq will be about 140,000 — higher than the 132,000 before the surge.
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