Shutting Down Saddam
Learn about the Gulf War, the conflict over weapons inspections and "Operation Iraqi Freedom." |
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Saddam Hussein accuses Kuwait and United Arab Emirates of overproducing oil and pushing prices down. |
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The Iraqi army invades Kuwait. The U.N. Security Council imposes a trade embargo on Iraq. |
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President Bush orders the deployment of U.S. troops to the Persian Gulf. |
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A U.S.-led coalition launches a devastating air war on Iraq. |
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Kuwait is liberated. Baghdad accepts a cease-fire two days later. |
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Shiite Muslims revolt against Saddam in southern Iraq. Later, they are joined by Kurds in the north. Both rebellions are savagely crushed after a month of fighting. |
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Iraq starts reporting on weapons of mass destruction, while the U.N. accuses Saddam of hiding missiles and nuclear facilities. The U.S., France and Britain declare a 19,000 sq. mile area of northern Iraq a safe haven for Kurds and impose a no-fly zone above the 36th parallel. |
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The United States, backed by Britain and France, declares a "no-fly" zone over southern Iraq to protect Shiite Muslim rebels. |
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As part of efforts to get the sanctions lifted, Iraq recognizes Kuwait as an independent state within the borders demarcated by a U.N. commission.
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The United Nations allows Iraq limited oil sales under a closely monitored deal, in the first loosening of the 1990 sanctions. |
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Iraq demands that Americans on the U.N. Special Commission inspection team leave; the Americans leave temporarily but return Nov. 20. |
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Iraq temporarily withdraws cooperation, claiming the inspection team had too many U.S. and British inspectors. |
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Iraq refuses inspection of presidential sites. |
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U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan secures Iraq's cooperation and unrestricted access to inspectors. |
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Iraq ends all forms of cooperation with UNSCOM. UNSCOM withdraws.
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Iraq allows inspections to resume. |
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Weapons inspectors are withdrawn from Iraq. Hours later, four days of U.S.-British strikes begin pounding Baghdad. |
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Iraq begins training hundreds of thousands of civilian men from their teens to their 70s to defend against an American attack, the official Iraqi News Agency said. |
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U.N. replaces UNSCOM with UNMOVIC, the U.N. Monitoring Verification and Inspection Commission. Iraq rejects the resolution. |
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Hans Blix assumes post of executive chairman of UNMOVIC.
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Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez becomes the first head of state to visit Iraq since the Gulf War and meets with Saddam. |
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A French charter flight becomes the first international flight into Baghdad to ignore the request from the U.N. sanctions committee to wait for clearance and starts a flood of flights from nations eager to chip away at sanctions. |
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Iraq rejects new weapons inspections proposals. |
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Iraq sends two domestic passenger flights from Baghdad to the cities of Basra and Mosul, in defiance of the no-fly zones. The U.S. says it has no objection to these domestic flights, but the move is seen as another attempt by the Arab nation to challenge the patrols. |
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Ordering his first military strike, President Bush sends U.S. and British jets to bomb Iraqi air defense sites near Baghdad. The "routine" mission is the first strike since December 1998 north of the 33rd Parallel. |
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Iraq's foreign minister rejects a U.S. proposal to amend U.N. sanctions, calling it a ploy to justify maintaining the embargo. The changes would have allowed more consumer goods into Iraq while maintaining curbs on assistance to Saddam's weapons program. |
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Iraq temporarily halts most oil exports, stopping the flow to all but neighboring Turkey and Jordan. The move protests a U.N. Security Council decision to extend by one month instead of the usual six months the program under which Iraq can sell oil. |
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Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says Iraq has rebuilt its air defenses since U.S. and British warplanes attacked radar and communications targets around Baghdad earlier in the year. |
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Despite denying any link to the Sept. 11 terror attacks, Iraq's vice president said America will likely target his country in a campaign to impose its will upon others. However, Taha Yassin Ramadan said, "We are confident that America is heading to its end." |
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Click here for more key events in the international effort to force Saddam to disarm, the invasion and subsequent war in Iraq. |
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Credits:
CBS News, Associated Press, Reuters |
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