IRAQ TIMELINE: FIVE YEARS OF WAR

Five years ago today President Bush launched the invasion of Iraq.

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/03/19/iraq-timeline-five-years/

To mark the anniversary, ThinkProgress has updated its timeline chronicling major events over the course of the past five years. Some highlights from just the last year:

APRIL 1, 2007: McCain strolls through Baghdad market, accompanied by 100 soldiers, 3 blackhawks, 2 Apache gunships. [NBC News, 4/1/07]

APRIL 12, 2007: Iraqi parliament bombed inside Green Zone. “An apparent suicide bombing inside the tightly guarded parliament building that killed two Sunni Arab legislators and six other people here Thursday struck at the heart of Iraq’s struggling democracy and the U.S. security plan that is trying to bolster it.” [LAT, 4/13/07]

MAY 9, 2007: Majority Of Iraqi Parliament Calls For Timetable For U.S. Withdrawal [Alternet, 5/9/2007]

SEPTEMBER 11, 2007: Petraeus: ‘I don’t know’ if Iraq war makes America safer. At the Senate Armed Services hearing on progress in Iraq today, Sen. John Warner (R-VA) asked Gen. David Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, “if we continue what you have laid before the Congress, this strategy, that if you continue, you are making America safer?” “Sir, I don’t know actually,” replied Petraeus. [CSPAN, 9/11/07]

OCTOBER 18, 2007: Iraq to Cheney: ‘Big fat no’ on bases in Iraq. The Iraqi government has “put the U.S. on notice” that they do not want permanent U.S. bases in Iraq, CNN reports today. The message was “delivered directly to Vice President Dick Cheney at the White House” by Iraqi National Security Adviser Mowaffak Al-Rubaie, who told CNN that Iraqis say, “No, big fat no, N-O for the bases in Iraq.” [CNN, 10/18/07]

The timeline catalogues the key events, quotes and pictures of the war. Check out the rest of the timeline here.