• March 20, 2003 – President Bush announces the war in Iraq, known as Operation Iraqi Freedom.
• March 21, 2003 – The “shock and awe” bombing attacks begin.
• April 9, 2003 – The U.S. military takes over the Iraqi capital of Baghdad and Marines help topple a huge statue of President Saddam Hussein, which stood in Baghdad’s main square.
• May 21, 2003 – “Mission Accomplished.” President Bush lands on the aircraft carrier the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln and declares that “major combat operations in Iraq have ended.”
• Dec. 14, 2003 – U.S. soldiers capture Saddam Hussein in a raid on a farm near Tikrit.
• Jan. 30, 2005 – Elections are held in Iraq for the first time in 25 years.
• October of 2005 – The number of military deaths in Iraq reaches 2,000 and the U.S. Senate holds a minute of silence, while the names of the dead are read out on the floor of the House of Representatives.
• Oct. 19, 2005 – Saddam Hussein’s trial begins.
• Nov. 5, 2006 – A defiant Hussein is sentenced to death for “crimes against humanity.”
• Dec. 30, 2006 – Hussein’s death sentence is carried out.
• Jan. 10, 2007 – The “surge” begins as the U.S. deploys five additional Army brigades and two Marine brigades in Iraq.
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