The Iraq Timeline

September 11, 2001, the president of the U.S. got a message stating that the first tower at ground zero was struck. George Walker Bush sighed, shrugged his shoulder, and walked into the Emma E. Booker Elementary School hoping to find out what would happen to that pet goat. (Or maybe get that picture of him holding a book) But it wasn’t until a worried Andy Card whispered to him that we were under attacked that action was being taken. Well maybe "action" isn’t the right word…maybe…"intense nothing" is better. You guessed it! It was that wacky Osama guy who did it! It was probably in those six minutes he was probably thinking, "Gee, I should’ve taken that August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Brief seriously." You see, in that "Presidential Daily Brief" (PDB) it clearly states that a guy some where in the Middle East named Osama bin Laden was planning to attack the U.S.A. using airplanes. Well, we know that president was on vacation when he got the PDB, and honestly who works on vacation?

After the class was done, and this country was unified for the first time since the "Clinton-sex scandal", Bush knew what must be done. President Bush took his 89% approval rating and scared the patriotic crap out of this country. The media was telling us scary stories about anthrax in our letters, and poisoned pens! We fled to the open arms of our President and asked "Who was it?"

Bush, Cheney, Rice, and Rumsfeld all told congress that it was Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan! They even told us that Intel proved it. So we did what America does best. We bombed the crap out of the terror cells in Afghanistan. But we didn’t win yet. As Bush said on the thirteenth of September in 2001, "Bin Laden is our number 1 priority." So what did we do? Well we gave up looking for him. The next year George Bush had this to say, "I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority."

We were now told that the our Intel tells us that this other guy in the Middle East named Saddam Hussein, who was dictator of this place named Iraq, had direct ties to 9/11. So they did just as any gullible Congress and Senate would do. They gave the Bush administration the authority to start a war with Iraq.

The date is March 19, 2003. In that single day, (a twenty-four hour period) America killed around thirty-thousand innocent people. Please note that when I said America I really meant the dumb-witted Texan in the white house. And think about this: Osama killed three-hundred people on Sept. 11th, but Bush killed thirty-thousand people on Mar. 19th. Does that make President Bush ten times a terrorist as Osama bin Laden?

Remember 2003? This was a big year for the Bush administration. If you recall the President on the air craft carrier on May 1st of 2003. He said this right under a "Mission Accomplished" banner: "[M]y fellow Americans: Major combat operations in Iraq have ended." Since that statement, the total number of U.S. troops that died in Iraq 3468.

Well, the "mission" wasn’t really accomplished (At least not for the people fighting and dieing over there.) Bush was quoted as saying "There are some who feel like — that the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is, bring them on." 226 American troops were injured in Iraq, that month of July 2003. Also in 2003, November 6th Bush is handed $87 billion to continue funding the war. Aside from the money and death issues, Bush decided to have Thanksgiving with the troops over seas. That’s how much he cares.

But Christmas was coming soon in 2003 (Even in Iraq!). So the Iraqis provided us with the best present of all: Saddam Hussein. The cover of every paper and magazine had the picture of Saddam with a full beard, bags under the eyes, and an awfully tired and confused face. In fact he kind of looked like he just came back from a hunting trip with Dick Cheney. All that fighting was worth it, considering we went from Al Qaeda-Saddam ties to the weapons of mass destruction to finding Saddam Hussein. Three excuses and one finally stuck!

As 2003 was wrapping up, the administration wasted no time to kick off 2004. Now 500 troops have died since the invasion and the future wasn’t looking bright. January 25th, Colin Powell says it is possible that no WMD will be found in Iraq. So that was that. Aside from the weapons we sold them we couldn’t find any. In fact the 30th of the same month Condoleezza Rice said that it is very possible that Iraq never had any chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons. Wow, all those deaths and no weapons. How can Condi get to sleep at night?

Anyway some sort of justice must be served for leading us in on an excuse of "Weapons of Mass Destruction". Well we can thank Tony Blair. He said the government will establish an independent committee to investigate prewar intelligence on Iraq's WMD. Well at least he said it, even though it never happened. Well we can’t loose momentum on the red coat.

In this year of 2004 we got to not only watch the death toll in Iraq increase, but we also got to see the Presidents sense of humor. At the annual Radio and Television Correspondents Association Dinner Bush showed a video of him looking under the desk and in the drawers of the oval office, leading up to the punch line which was: "Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere…"

The joke wasn’t funny, and neither was the fact that the troops looking for those WMDs were dying. In fact the month that "funny" video was shown 52 American troops died. Sorry Mr. President, I’m not laughing. But Bush wasn’t the only one who had a horrible sense of humor that year. A couple of prison guards at a prison called Abu Ghraib thought they would have some fun with the prisoners we captured. On April 28, pictures were released of our prisoners of war in awkward positions and being tortured for no reason. They were naked and stacked on one another, and physically and mentally abused. These pictures went against everything we agreed on in the Geneva Conventions.

The photos were everywhere, and Donald Rumsfeld even took responsibility. Unfortunately, nothing happened to him, even though we committed a global crime. But after the Abu Ghraib business was dying down, and people went back to the not-caring-about-anything mode of thinking. But things weren’t followed as close as they should. By September the death toll of American troops reached 1000. In the 15th of September, 8 days after the death toll of a 1000 was released, Bush asked the Senate for $3.4 billion of the $18.4 billion to "rebuild" Iraq. None of that money went to the troops.

Well onward through this year of anything but cute, to November. So aside from the obvious faults of this year, like the troops dying, by far the worst thing to happen to our country and Iraq was George W. Bush was re-elected.

Bush wasted no time in wasting time in Iraq during the start of 2005. On January 12, the search for the WMDs is declared as over. So the troops are over there with nothing to do to but fight off the never ending stream of radical Islamists. They were put there, dying for a lie, now the president keeps them there for no reason, not even a lie. As if 2005 couldn’t get any worse already, the 30th of January made it the worst!

First of all, let me tell you the background to what is going on right now. The CPA was handling money, which we call the Development Fund for Iraq (DFI), which was going to rebuild the country. Doing their job. The amount of money: $8.8 billion. So why is this important, you ask? Well the CPA lost all $8.8 billion. I’m serious! $9 billion just got up and walk out, as if it never existed. I get angry when I lose a five dollar bill! Well that’s 9 billion dollars gone, and at least no one cares. (< that was sarcasm)

To end this month of January, 106 troops died this month alone. Anyway I’ll do the George Bush way of thinking and try and ignore the death of the troops and stay the course of this essay. Nothing really happened in February this year, except the typical car bombing, which killed 114 Iraqis. But with this kind of violence it’s easy to see that by March 3, the death of troop’s hits 1500. That’s have the number of Americans that died on 9/11.

To end the month of March on a sad note, after 1500+ troops have died in Iraq, the presidential commission on Iraqi WMD, concludes:
"[T]he intelligence community was dead wrong in almost all of its prewar judgments."

On May 11 Bush signs supplemental spending bill, providing nearly $76 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. So lets face it, are things going to end soon in Iraq? Well Dick Cheney said on Larry King, "I think they’re in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency." I have to say, the comment was not thought out so well, but my favorite statement about the insurgency was by then Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld appeared on Fox news June 27, 2005, just to say this about the insurgency: "Insurgencies tend to go on five, six, eight, 10, 12 years."

So there you go. We could be there for another 12 years. But didn’t Cheney say we were almost done? Anyway, while the administration was flip-flopping on the war and the insurgency, they also had to deal with a dangerous enemy! A mother named Cindy Sheehan lost her son in this war, and she felt it was her duty to speak out against the president and his "mission". On August 7, 2005 she camped outside his ranch in Crawford as a protest. It was pretty funny really, just to see the presidents’ reaction.

Moving all the way to October 26, 2005: American military death toll reaches 2,000. In fact October became labeled the 4th most dangerous month of the war, with 92 U.S. troops dead that month alone. It was pretty easy to see why Cindy Sheehan was so upset.

Even congressmen and senators were angry. Liebermann said that "Bush has turned the corner on Iraq." The Senate voted 79-19 to demand regular reports from the White House on progress towards a phased pullout of troops from Iraq. Sen. John Murtha said on November 18, 2005 that, "Our military is suffering. The future of our country is at risk. We cannot continue on the present course."

With all this action against the president, he had this to say to make everything better: "[M]uch of the intelligence turned out to be wrong."

That was the end of ’05 and when ’06 started up, January 6th became one of "the bloodiest days in the war" since the invasion, with 140 killed. That was one day. No one was safe in that country, not even reporters. On January 29th Bob Woodruff and his camera man were seriously injured by a road side bomb. He is now ok and back to work, doing what he loves.

With violence of this kind of increase, anyone could tell that we were in this for a while. Everyone but Donald Rumsfeld. He was asked a question by the Washington Times and the question was, "Is Iraq going to be a long war?" and his answer: "No, I don’t believe it is." Wait a minute. Didn’t he say eight months ago that we could be in Iraq for up to 12 years? Well never mind that, I mean who cares about the past?

In February, the president requested an additional $70 billion dollars for Afghanistan and Iraq giving a whopping total of $120 billion! You can buy a lot with that money but I guess you can’t buy a good plan. Another report released just a few days after the money was pumped into the war, revealed that Bush and his administration surprisingly didn’t have a plan for the post-war.

With a year like this it’s not hard to see why 2007 would be the salt rubbing in the wound of this war. Today, troops are put in the middle of sectarian violence, otherwise known as a civil war. Sunnis from the east, Shiites from the west, and the Kurds from the north will forever fight either for power, land ownership, religion, or any other cause worth fighting for. Is it worth letting our defense down on the home front to stay the course? George Bush did know the Taliban, he gave the Taliban a tour of Texas while governor. George Bush knew the bin Laden family and still has connection with them. Bush is this war about Al Qaeda, or oil profits, or are you that hungry for power? Bush has never apologized for "false information" or violating the Geneva Conventions. The death toll keeps rising, Mr. President, but it all goes back to one thing, at least you got away with Ohio.