SECTION 11

A timeline for events leading to the second Gulf War.


July 16, 1979 -- Saddam Hussein becomes president of Iraq.

Sept. 22, 1980 -- Iran-Iraq war begins. United States backs Saddam.

Aug. 29, 1988 -- Iran-Iraq war ends. At least 1 million people believed killed.

Aug. 2, 1990 -- Iraq invades Kuwait. U.N. Security Council Resolution 660 calls for full withdrawal.

Aug. 6, 1990 -- United Nations imposes economic sanctions on Iraq.

Jan. 16, 1991 -- Gulf War begins. U.S.-led forces begin airstrikes against Iraq.

Feb. 27, 1991 -- After three-day ground operation, Kuwait liberated.

March 3, 1991 -- Iraq accepts terms of cease-fire.

April 6, 1991 -- Iraq accepts U.N. demand it end production of weapons of mass destruction. Also agrees to allow monitoring by the U.N. special commission inspection team.

June 27, 1993 -- U.S. airstrikes against Iraqi intelligence in retaliation for assassination plot against former President *.W. Bush.

April 14, 1995 -- Oil-for-food program that allows Iraq to export oil to buy food and medicine starts.

Dec. 16, 1998 -- U.N. inspection team withdrawn. Says Iraq is not cooperating fully.

Dec. 16-19, 1998 -- Operation Desert Fox begins against Iraqi weapons programs.

Dec. 17, 1999 -- United Nations replaces U.N Special Commission with U.N. Monitoring, Verification And Inspection Commission. Iraq rejects move.

Jan. 29, 2002 -- President Bush labels Iraq, Iran and North Korea the "Axis of Evil" in his first State of the Union speech.

Feb. 5, 2002 -- Iraq wants to resume talks with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, an Arab League spokesman says. Annan agrees.

March 7, 2002 -- Annan meets Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri at the United Nations, says he has sensed "some flexibility" in Baghdad's position on Security Council resolutions.

March 15, 2002 -- German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder rejects German military participation in a war against Iraq without a clear U.N. mandate.

April 8, 2002 -- Saddam announces his country would immediately halt pumping oil for one month.

April 29, 2002 -- Saddam turns 65.

May 3, 2002 -- Annan describes three days of talks that have ended between Iraqi and U.N. officials aimed at getting weapons inspectors back to Baghdad as "useful and frank."

May 14, 2002 -- U.N. Security Council unanimously approves the most significant changes in sanctions against Iraq in 12 years, allowing civilian goods in, while tightening the ban on military and "dual use" items.

June 14, 2002 -- The United States demands expulsion of First Secretary Abdul Rahman Saad, a senior diplomat in the Iraqi Mission to the United Nations, for "activities incompatible with his diplomatic status." Iraq denies he is a spy.

July 17, 2002 -- Saddam vows to defeat any U.S. attack on Iraq, urging his people to stand fast and fight for the independence and sovereignty of their country.

July 24, 2002 -- Al-Thawra daily, mouthpiece of Iraq's ruling Baath party, criticizes U.N. Security Council for failing to answer its queries on proposed arms inspection teams, a deadline for lifting international sanctions, and the council's position on U.S. military threats to Iraq.

July 30, 2002 -- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says Bush administration wants to see a "regime change" in Iraq but has not made a decision whether to pursue it by going to war.

Aug. 1, 2002 -- Iraqi Foreign Minister Sabri asks Annan to send weapons inspectors as soon as possible to Baghdad.

Aug. 2, 2002 -- Annan hands over to the Security Council Iraq's request for technical talks in Baghdad with top U.N. weapons inspectors. Annan welcomes the letter but says it is "at variance" with council resolutions on the return of weapons inspectors.

Aug. 5, 2002 -- Annan says there must be weapons inspections in Iraq before the top U.N. weapons inspector can engage in the technical talks Baghdad has requested.

Aug. 8, 2002 -- Saddam calls for the United Nations to honor its obligations concerning sanctions against Iraq. Annan says there's nothing "new" in the speech.

Aug. 20, 2002 -- A group of gunmen take over the Iraqi Embassy in Berlin. Group is identified as the previously unknown Democratic Iraqi Opposition in Germany. Berlin police storm the embassy, freeing the hostages and apprehending the gunmen.

Aug. 21, 2002 -- Palestinian guerrilla leader Sabri al-Banna, better known as Abu Nidal, found dead in his Baghdad apartment. Iraq says it was suicide. His group said he was killed.

Aug. 21, 2002 -- Rumsfeld says Bush is "thinking about" war with Iraq. "(The) president has made no decision to go into war with Iraq," he says, however.

Aug. 23, 2002 -- The Bush administration broadcasts interview with the Pentagon's third-ranking official calling on Iraqis to topple Saddam. "The future that we see for Iraq is a future that would be based on the Iraqi people freeing themselves from the oppression they are now suffering," ******* Feith tells Radio Sawa, a newly formed AM radio station broadcast from Kuwait.

Sept. 12, 2002 -- Bush tells world leaders gathered at a U.N. General Assembly session to confront the "grave and gathering danger" of Iraq -- or stand aside as the United States acts.

Sept. 16, 2002 -- Iraq says it will allow -- "without conditions" -- the immediate return of weapons inspectors, who have been barred by Baghdad since late 1998. Washington calls the move "a tactical step."

Sept. 23, 2002 -- Official ruling Baath party newspaper rejects any new U.N. resolution.

Sept. 25, 2002 -- National security adviser Condoleezza Rice says Iraq possibly helped al-Qaida operatives develop chemical and biological weapons, and that senior leaders of the terrorist network have been harbored in Baghdad. First attempt to tie Baghdad with terrorism.

Oct. 1, 2002 -- White House says Saddam must go no matter how. "I can only say that the cost of a one-way ticket is substantially less than that," a White House spokesman says. "The cost of one bullet, if the Iraqi people take it on themselves, is substantially less than that. The cost of war is more than that."

Oct. 10, 2002 -- By a vote of 296 to 133, the U.S. House approves a resolution that allows Bush to use unilateral military action against Saddam's regime without conditions beyond being informed almost immediately of any military action.

Oct. 11, 2002 -- The Senate approves Iraq resolution in a 77 to 23 vote.

Oct. 16, 2002 -- Saddam wins 100 percent of Iraqi votes in a referendum that renews his presidential term for 7 years.

Oct. 23, 2002 -- The United States, following three days of talks with the other four veto-holding permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, presents a draft resolution on Iraq to the 10 elected members of the panel in closed-door consultations.

Oct. 25, 2002 -- The United States formally tables its tough, backed-with-force draft resolution for the return of weapons inspectors to Iraq, seeking a vote "as soon as possible."

Nov. 6, 2002 -- U.N. Security Council begins considering the revised U.S. draft resolution declaring Iraq in "material breach" of previous measures but giving Baghdad a "final opportunity to comply." It warns of "serious consequences" -- diplomatic words for use of force -- if Iraq fails to obey.

Nov. 8, 2002 -- U.N. Security Council unanimously approves U.S.-sponsored Resolution 1441, authorizing the return of weapons inspectors to Iraq and "serious consequences" if Baghdad fails to cooperate.

Nov. 11, 2002 -- Iraq's Parliament recommends the rejection of Resolution 1441, but says it will defer to Saddam's decision.

Nov. 13, 2002 -- Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations says his country accepts "unconditionally" the U.N. resolution on disarming Iraq.

Nov. 18, 2002 -- Hans Blix, head of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission and Mohammed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, arrive in Baghdad. Talks focus on a mechanism for the inspection mission in Iraq.

Nov. 20, 2002 -- Blix and ElBaradei leave Baghdad. Blix calls talks "fruitful."

Nov. 21, 2002 -- NATO agrees "to take effective action" to ensure Iraq's compliance with U.N. demands for full disarmament of its suspected weapons of mass destruction.

Nov. 25, 2002 -- U.N. weapons inspectors arrive in Baghdad.

Nov. 27, 2002 -- U.N. inspectors examine two sites east of Baghdad. Inspection are the first in four years after they left the country amid a dispute over access to sites.

Dec. 4, 2002 -- The U.N. Security Council unanimously approves a 6-month extension of the oil-for-food humanitarian program.

Dec. 7, 2002 -- Iraq hands over 12,000-plus page report and several compact discs that reportedly describe the country's arms programs before and after 1990 to the United Nations. Critics call the report insufficient.

Dec. 19, 2002 -- Blix and ElBaradei give Security Council preliminary assessment of Iraq's 12,000-page declaration on its weapons of mass destruction programs. Blix says "an opportunity was missed" by Baghdad and says the declaration had "relatively little by way of evidence relative to weapons of mass destruction."

Dec. 28, 2002 -- Iraq turns over to international weapons inspectors a list of scientists involved in its weapons programs. Inspectors want to interview scientists and fill in gaps in knowledge about possible programs for chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.

__________________
Run like an antelope,
Roll like a cantaloupe.