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| 1991 | Bush, George Herbert Walker |  |
| 24th Feb The Allied land offensive begins against Iraq |
| 17th April USAforces move into northern Iraq to set up safe havens for Kurdish refugees |
| 2002 | Bush, George Walker | |
| 11th Oct Authority to attack Iraq if Iraqi President Saddam Hussein does not give up his weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and abide by previous UN resolutions on human rights, POWs, and terrorism |
| 11th Oct The United States Congress passed the "Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002" |
| 2002 | Rice, Condoleezza | |
| 8th Dec After Iraq delivered its declaration of weapons of mass destruction to the United Nations on December 8, 2002, Rice wrote an editorial for The New York Times entitled Why We Know Iraq Is Lying |
| 8th Dec States regarding Iraqi WMD: "The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud" |
| 2003 | Bush, George Walker | |
| 20th Mar Prior to the invasion, the United States ' official position was that Iraq was in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1441 regarding weapons of mass destruction and had to be disarmed by force |
| 20th Mar The United States , the United Kingdom, Australia, South Korea, Italy and Poland supply the vast majority of the invading forces, in co-operation with Kurdish forces |
| 20th Mar The USAlaunches the invasion of Iraq, termed "Operation Iraqi Freedom" |
| 9th April Bush declares the end of major combat operations, terminating the Baath Party's rule and removing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from office |
| 2007 | Bush, George Walker | |
| 11th Jan Erbil Troops storm an Iranian diplomatic office in Kurdish-controlled Erbil and detain five people, urdish officials are outraged at the move, and about 100 Kurdish troops stop USAtroops from crossing a checkpoint. |
| 16th Jan The tally of death certificates and reports from morgues, hospitals, and other institutions indicates more than 34,000 Iraqi civilians died in 2006 |
| 24th Jan Senate Foreign Relations Committee votes, 12-9, in favor of a nonbinding resolution that denounces President Bush's plan to deploy additional troops to Iraq |
| 2nd Feb National Intelligence Estimate finds the Iraqi leadership is likely too weak to hold the country together, the military is ill-equipped to rein in militias, and USAtroops are necessary to stabilize Iraq |
| 16th Feb The House of Representatives votes, 246-182, in favor of a nonbinding resolution that expresses support for USAtroops but criticizes President Bush's "surge" that calls for some 20,000 additional troops to be sent to Iraq. |
| 15th May President Bush selects Lt Gen Douglas Lute to oversee war policy in Iraq and Afghanistan |
| 25th May Moktada al-Sadr, leader of the Mahdi Army militia and an opponent of the US-led war in Iraq, reemerges from hiding for the first time since January. In a speech, he calls for a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq |
| 31st May With 127 deaths, May is the deadliest month for U.S. troops since November 2004 |
| 24th Aug A review of progress in Iraq, called the National Intelligence Estimate, says the Iraqi government has failed to end sectarian violence even with the surge of American troops |
| 13th Sep n a nationally televised address, President Bush outlines a plan for withdrawing troops from Iraq, he says by July 2008 troop levels would drop from the current high of 169,000 to 130,000 |
| 12th Oct Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the former Commander of USAforces in Iraq, criticizes the Bush administration for its "catastrophically flawed, unrealistically optimistic war plan" |
| 17th Oct Turkey's Parliament votes, 507 to 19, to allow the deployment of troops into northern Iraq to deal with attacks on Turkey by Kurdish rebels in Iraq |
| 6th Nov Six American soldiers are killed in Iraq, bringing the total deaths in 2007 to 852, the highest annual total since the war began in 2003 |
| 2007 | Levin, Carl | |
| 11th Sep Senator Carl Levin, Democrat from Michigan, says, "Year after year, the president and the administration have touted progress in Iraq and called for patience. It has been a litany of delusion" |
| 2007 | Lute, Douglas | |
| 15th May President Bush selects Lt Gen Douglas Lute to oversee war policy in Iraq and Afghanistan |
| 2007 | Petraeus, David | |
| 10th Sep Petraeus tells the House Foreign Affairs and Armed Services committees that the USAmilitary needs more time to meet its goals in Iraq, he says troops in Iraq may be reduced from 20 brigades to 15, or from troops to 130,000, beginning in July 2008 |
| 11th Sep Petraeus and Ryan Crocker face more intense and critical questioning from members of the Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees, they failed to answer definitely repeated questions about how long USAtroops would be in Iraq |
| 24th Nov Diyala Province A brigade of 5,000 U.S. troops starts to leave Diyala Province, the first significant pullback of troops. Once the withdrawal is complete, there will be 157,000 soldiers in Iraq, from a high of 162,000 |
| 16th Dec Dohuk Province With the help of the USAmilitary, Turkish fighter jets bomb areas in Dohuk Province in northern Iraq, targeting the Kurdish militant group, the Kurdistan Workers ' Party |
| 26th Dec Gen. David Petraeus reports that car bombs and suicide attacks have dropped by 60% since June 2007 |
