Iraq War 2003 Timeline

2001

• 11 January 2001 - George Bush goes to the Pentagon for 'a top-secret session with the Joint Chiefs of Staff to review hot spots around the world'. Attended by Cheney, Powell, Rumsfeld and Rice, 'half of the 75-minute meeting focused on a discussion about Iraq and the Persian Gulf' according to one attendee.
• 11 September 2001 - According to notes taken by Stephen Cambone, Donald Rumsfeld issued instructions for Richard Myers at 2:40 p.m. for "best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit S.H. [Saddam Hussein] at same time. Not only UBL...Near term target needs - go massive - sweep it all up, things related and not."
• 13 September 2001 - at a meeting of Principals at Camp David, Paul Wolfowitz broaches the prospects of attacking Iraq.

2002

• 23 July 2002 - The Downing Street Memo is written, in which British intelligence said "C Richard Dearlove reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD."

• August 2002 - White House Iraq Group formed.

• 6 September 2002 - Andrew Card quoted by New York Times saying "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August." On why the administration waited until after Labor Day to try to sell the American people on military action against Iraq.

• 7-8 September 2002 - the New York Times publishes a frontpage story by Judith Miller making the 'aluminum tubes' accusation.Bush and his top advisers blanket the airways, talking about the dangers posed by Iraq:
  • On NBC's "Meet the Press," Vice President Dick Cheney accused Saddam of moving aggressively to develop nuclear weapons over the past 14 months to add to his stockpile of chemical and biological arms.
  • On CNN, Condoleezza Rice acknowledged that "there will always be some uncertainty" in determining how close Iraq may be to obtaining a nuclear weapon but says "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."
  • On CBS, Bush says U.N. weapons inspectors, before they were denied access to Iraq in 1998, concluded that Saddam was "six months away from developing a weapon." He also cited satellite photos released by a U.N. agency Friday that show unexplained construction at Iraq sites that weapons inspectors once visited to search for evidence Saddam was trying to develop nuclear arms. "I don't know what more evidence we need," Bush said.

• 14 October 2002: Bush says of Saddam "This is a man that we know has had connections with al Qaeda. This is a man who, in my judgment, would like to use al Qaeda as a forward army."