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46th Governor of Texas 43rd President of the United States
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The following is a timeline of the presidency of George W. Bush, from January 1, 2003, to December 31, 2003.
This is a timeline of the events surrounding the United States-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Tariq Aziz was an Iraqi politician who served as Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs and a close advisor of President Saddam Hussein. Their association began in the 1950s when both were activists for the then-banned Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party. He was both an Arab nationalist and a member of the Chaldean Catholic Church.
The 2003 invasion of Iraq was a United States-led invasion of the Republic of Iraq and the first stage of the Iraq War. The invasion phase began on 19 March 2003 (air) and 20 March 2003 (ground) and lasted just over one month, including 26 days of major combat operations, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Poland invaded Iraq. Twenty-two days after the first day of the invasion, the capital city of Baghdad was captured by Coalition forces on 9 April 2003 after the six-day-long Battle of Baghdad. This early stage of the war formally ended on 1 May 2003 when U.S. President George W. Bush declared the "end of major combat operations" in his Mission Accomplished speech, after which the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) was established as the first of several successive transitional governments leading up to the first Iraqi parliamentary election in January 2005. U.S. military forces later remained in Iraq until the withdrawal in 2011.
Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Assessment of the British Government, also known as the September Dossier, was a document published by the British government on 24 September 2002 on the same day of a recall of Parliament to discuss the contents of the document. The paper was part of an ongoing investigation by the government into weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq, which ultimately led to the invasion of Iraq six months later. It contained a number of allegations according to which Iraq also possessed WMD, including chemical weapons and biological weapons. The dossier even alleged that Iraq had reconstituted its nuclear weapons programme. Without exception, all of the allegations included within the September Dossier have been since proven to be false, as shown by the Iraq Survey Group.
The Niger uranium forgeries were forged documents initially released in 2001 by SISMI, which seem to depict an attempt made by Saddam Hussein in Iraq to purchase yellowcake uranium powder from Niger during the Iraq disarmament crisis. On the basis of these documents and other indicators, the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom asserted that Iraq violated United Nations sanctions against Iraq by attempting to procure nuclear material for the purpose of creating weapons of mass destruction.
The rationale for the Iraq War, both the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the subsequent hostilities, was controversial. The George W. Bush administration began actively pressing for military intervention in Iraq in late 2001. The primary rationalization for the Iraq War was articulated by a joint resolution of the United States Congress known as the Iraq Resolution. The US claimed the intent was to "disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein's support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people".
The 2003 United States–British–Spanish Draft Resolution on Iraq was, according to Ambassador John Negroponte, "a resolution to have the Council decide that Iraq is not complying, is out of compliance, with Resolution 1441". Initially introduced on February 24, 2003, and amended on March 7, 2003, the draft set a March 17 deadline for Iraq to demonstrate "full, unconditional, immediate and active cooperation in accordance with its disarmament obligations." The draft was based on information from the Iraqi defector "Curveball," who claimed Saddam Hussein was in possession of weapons of mass destruction, which Curveball later admitted was untrue. The widely discussed UN resolution was not brought up for formal vote after it became clear that it would not have passed due to opposition from France, Russia, and China. The United States invaded Iraq without UN support on March 20, 2003, initiating the Iraq War.
The following is a timeline of the presidency of Bill Clinton, from January 1, 1995 to December 31, 1995.
The following is a timeline of the presidency of George W. Bush from his inauguration as the 43rd president of the United States on January 20, 2001, to December 31, 2001.
The following is a timeline of the presidency of George W. Bush, from January 1, 2002 to December 31, 2002.
The following is a timeline of the presidency of George W. Bush, from January 1, 2004 to December 31, 2004.
The following is a timeline of the presidency of George W. Bush, from January 1, 2005 to December 31, 2005.
The following is a timeline of the presidency of George W. Bush, from January 1, 2006 to December 31, 2006.
The following is a timeline of the presidency of George W. Bush, from January 1, 2007, to December 31, 2007.
The following is a timeline of the presidency of George W. Bush, from January 1, 2008 to January 20, 2009.
The following is a timeline of the presidency of George H. W. Bush, from January 1, 1992 to January 20, 1993.
The following is a timeline of the presidency of George H. W. Bush, from January 1, 1991 to December 31, 1991.
The following is a timeline of the presidency of Bill Clinton, from January 1, 1996 to December 31, 1996.
The following is a timeline of the presidency of Bill Clinton, from January 1, 1997, to December 31, 1997.
The following is a timeline of the presidency of George H. W. Bush, from January 1, 1990 to December 31, 1990.
