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.
• 30 January 2001 - "From the very beginning, there was a conviction that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go." Saddam's removal is the first item of Bush's inaugural national security meeting. Then-Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill later tells journalist Ron Suskind, "It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The president saying, 'Go find me a way to do this.'" Bush also says the emphasis on Iraq will accompany a de-emphasis on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Secretary of State Colin Powell says US disengagement would give Ariel Sharon free rein and bring further suffering upon the Palestinians. According to Suskind's later book, "The One Percent Doctrine," Bush replies, "Sometimes a show of force by one side can really clarify things."
• 14 February 2001 - Exxon vice president James Rouse meets Dick Cheney's task force on energy policy.
• 16 February 2001 - US-UK jets bomb Iraq.
• 14 February 2001 - Colin Powell, on a visit to Egypt, says that Saddam Hussein "has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors."
• 05 March 2001 - A Pentagon document dated March 5, 2001 and titled "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts" includes a map of areas for potential exploration. It is brought to light by Ron Suskind in his book "The Price of Loyalty." "It talks about contractors around the world from, you know, 30-40 countries," Suskind will tell CBS. "And which ones have what intentions on oil in Iraq."
• 09 April 2001 - Mohammad Atta allegedly meets with senior Iraqi intelligence officials at the Iraqi embassy in Prague. The 9/11 Report (Section 7) will later debunk this claim: "The FBI has gathered evidence indicating that Atta was in Virginia Beach on April 4 (as evidenced by a bank surveillance camera photo), and in Coral Springs, Florida, on April 11, where he…leased an apartment. On April 6, 9, 10, and 11, Atta's cellular telephone was used numerous times to call various lodging establishments in Florida from cell sites within Florida… No evidence has been found that Atta was in the Czech Republic in April 2001." Dick Cheney will nevertheless repeatedly invoke the meeting as evidence of a link between Al Qaeda and Saddam.
• 30 April 2001 - According to Richard Clarke's "Against All Enemies," Paul Wolfowitz challenges Clarke at a meeting: "You give bin Laden too much credit. He could not do all these things like the 1993 attack in New York, not without a state sponsor. Just because FBI and CIA have failed to find the linkages doesn't mean that they don't exist."
• 10 July 2001 - On or around this date National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice is briefed by CIA director George Tenet and counterterrorism chief J. Cofer Black about terror threats. Bob Woodward, in his book "State of Denial," reports that Tenet and Black decided they had to request a dramatic, "out-of-cycle" meeting with Rice to convey their anxiety over the chance of an attack against American interests, possibly within the United States. It was, according to Woodward, the "starkest warning they had given the White House" on bin Laden and Al Qaeda. Rice, in Woodward's account, was "polite," but Tenet and Black "felt the brush-off."When Woodward's book came out, in October 2006, Rice denied that the meeting--which the State Dept. confirmed took place--was exceptional, and disputed Woodward's characterization. “What I am quite certain of is that I would remember if I was told, as this account apparently says, that there was about to be an attack in the United States," she said. "[A]nd the idea that I would somehow have ignored that I find incomprehensible.”
• 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."

2003

• 21 January 2003 - Bush says of Saddam "He has weapons of mass destruction -- the world's deadliest weapons -- which pose a direct threat to the United States, our citizens and our friends and allies."

• 5 February 2003 - Colin Powell addresses the United Nations, asserting that there was "no doubt in my mind" that Saddam was working to obtain key components to produce nuclear weapons.

• 19 March 2003 - The US invades Iraq.