8/14/92 -- Defense Sec. Dick Cheney declares President Bush Sr. wise not to invade Baghdad and "get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq."
4/15/93 -- Saddam Hussein reportedly tries to assassinate Bush Sr.
1/26/98 -- Project for a New American Century (PNAC) -- founded by Cheney, Scooter Libby, Donald Rumsfeld, Jeb Bush, Paul Wolfowitz, and other top neocons -- demands President Clinton undertake the "removal of Saddam Hussein's regime."
6/23/98: "The good Lord didn't see fit to put oil and gas only where there are democratically elected regimes friendly to the United States." -- Halliburton CEO Cheney
8/7/98 -- Al Qaeda bombs U.S. embassies in Africa, killing 220 and injuring some 4,000.
10/31/98 -- Clinton signs the Iraq Liberation Act. Regime change becomes official U.S. policy.
Late 1998 -- Gen. Anthony Zinni, head of U.S. Central Command, examines Iraqi exile Ahmed Chalabi's military plan to overthrow Saddam with 1,000 men. He warns Congress it is "pie in the sky, a fairy tale."
Nov. 1999 -- Chalabi-connected Iraqi defector "Curveball" -- a convicted sex offender and low-level engineer who became the sole source for much of the case that Saddam had WMD, particularly mobile weapons labs -- enters Munich seeking a German visa. German intel officers describe his information as highly suspect. U.S. agents never debrief Curve-ball or perform background check. Nonetheless, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and CIA will pass raw intel on to senior policymakers.
8/27/00 -- America must not act as "an imperialist power, willy-nilly moving into capitals in that part of the world, taking down governments." -- VP candidate Cheney
10/3/00 -- Debating Al Gore, George W. Bush says he'd commit troops only with an "exit strategy," and he's be "very careful about using our troops as nation builders."
10/11/00 -- In a subsequent debate, Bush says: "If we're an arrogant nation, they'll resent us. If we're a humble nation, but strong, they'll welcome us."
10/11/00 -- In a subsequent debate, Bush says: "If we're an arrogant nation, they'll resent us. If we're a humble nation, but strong, they'll welcome us."
10/12/00 -- Al Qaeda attacks USS Cole in Aden, Yemen, killing 17 and injuring 39.
11/6/00 -- Congress doubles funding for Iraqi opposition groups to more than $25 million; $18 million earmarked for Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress, which then pays defectors for anti-Iraq tales.
11/7/00 -- Election night: Indecision 2000 begins.
Nov. 2000 -- Future Chief Justice John Roberts flies to Florida to advise Jeb Bush during recount.
12/12/00 -- Supreme Court hands presidency to George W. Bush.
Early 2001 -- Enron CEO Ken Lay named to Bush Energy Dept. transition team. Jack Abramoff appointed to Interior Dept. transition team.
1/30/01 -- Saddam's removal is top item of Bush's inaugural national security meeting. Treasury Sec. Paul O'Neill later recalls, 'It was all about finding a way to do it. The president saying, 'Go find me a way to do this.'"
2/11/01 -- "Iraq is probably not a nuclear threat at the present time." -- Defense Sec. Donald Rumsfeld tells Fox News' Tony Snow
2/14/01 -- Dick Cheney's energy task force begins secret meetings with oil company executives.
2/16/01 -- Bush: "To send a clear signal to Saddam," U.S. and U.K. bomb targets near Baghdad.
2/24/01 -- Saddam "has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction." -- Sec. of State Colin Powell
2/26/01 -- Future Iraq Ambassador L. Paul Bremer III says: "The new administration seems to be paying no attention to the problem of terrorism."
3/5/01 -- Pentagon produces document titled "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts" for Cheney's task force. Includes a map of areas for potential exploration.
4/10/01 -- Lone CIA analyst known only as "Joe" tells top Bush brass that aluminum tubes bought by Iraq can only be for nuclear centrifuges.
8/6/01 -- On vacation in Crawford, Bush receives a Presidential Daily Briefing warning, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." FBI highlights Al Qaeda activities consistent with hijacking preparations, as well as surveillance of federal buildings. CIA officer flies to Crawford to call Bush's attention to document. Bush replies, "All right, you've covered your ass now."
8/10/01 -- Major air raid on Iraq.
8/17/01 -- Memo to CIA from Energy Dept. experts eviscerates "Joe's" theory that aluminum tubes purchased by Iraq are for nuclear centrifuges. Memo given to National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice, who later claims tubes are clear evidence of Iraqi nuke program.
Sept. 2001 -- Curveball granted German asylum, ceases cooperating. British spy agency M16 has told CIA that "elements of [his] behavior strike us as typical of ... fabricators."
9/10/01 -- NSA intercepts messages that say, "The match is about to begin" and "Tomorrow is zero hour." Not translated until Sept. 12.
9/11/01 -- Al Qaeda [ALLEGEDLY] attacks. Minutes taken by a Rumsfeld aide five hours later: "Best info fast. Judge whether good enough [to] hit SH [Saddam Hussein] @ same time. Not only UBL [Usama bin Laden]."
9/12/01 -- According to counterterror czar Richard Clarke, "[Bush] told us, 'I want you, as soon as you can, to go back over everything, everything. See if Saddam did this.'" Told evidence against Al Qaeda overwhelming, Bush asks for "any shred" Saddam was involved.
9/17/01 -- Bush wants Osama "Dead or Alive."
9/18/01 -- Anthrax attacks begin.
9/18/01 -- In a move a federal judge will later call "conscience-shocking," EPA chief Christine Todd Whitman says area around Ground Zero is safe and encourages residents to return.
9/18/01 -- Chalabi meets with top DOD officials.
9/19/01 -- Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, chaired by Richard Perle and featuring Henry Kissinger and Newt Gingrich, declares that Iraq should be invaded after Afghanistan.
9/20/01 -- British PM Tony Blair advises Bush not to lose focus on Al Qaeda. Bush replies: "I agree with you, Tony. But when we have dealt with Afghanistan, we must come back to Iraq."
9/20/01 -- PNAC letter to Bush: "Even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the attack, any strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power."
9/21/01 -- Bush briefed by intel community that there is no evidence linking Saddam to 9/11.
9/21/01 -- Justice Dept. lawyer John Yoo declares Fourth Amendment flexible, writing: "[T]he government may be justified in taking measures which in less troubled conditions could be seen as infringements of individual liberties."
9/25/01 -- Yoo forges doctrine of preemption, writing that Bush may use his war powers to act against groups or individuals, even if it would be "difficult to establish [that they] have been or may be implicated in attacks."
Oct. 2001 -- Rumsfeld sets up own intelligence unit to look for Iraqi links to terrorism.
Oct-Nov 2001 -- Prisoners rendered to Egypt and Jordan. After prolonged torture and subsequent years of imprisonment at Guantanamo, some of these same prisoners are found to have no terror connection and released.
10/7/01 -- Afghanistan is invaded.
10/8/01 -- Office of Homeland Security established.
10/11/01 -- Terror alert: Terrorists could attack unspecified targets in "next several days."
10/25/01 -- Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT) Act passes 98-1 in the Senate.
10/30/01 -- Head of Homeland Security Tom Ridge announces, "We believe the United States could very well be targeted this week."
11/8/01 -- The New York Times and Frontline report that an Iraqi general witnessed the Iraqi military training Arab fighters to hijack airplanes. Mother Jones later reports general to be bogus Chalabi plant.
11/11/01 -- Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, top Al Qaeda paramilitary trainer, captured in Pakistan.
11/21/01 -- Bush collars Rumsfeld physically and asks: "What have you got in terms of plans for Iraq? What is the status of the war plan? I want you to get on it. I want you to keep it secret." -- Bob Woodward
11/24/01 -- "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh captured.
11/26/01 -- Bush declares, "Saddam is evil."
Late Nov. 2001 -- Osama bin Laden, pinned down at Tora Bora, slips away.
12/2/01 -- Enron declares bankruptcy.
12/3/01 -- Terror alert.
12/9/01 -- Cheney on Meet the Press: "Well, the evidence is pretty conclusive that the Iraqis have indeed harbored terrorists." Also claims 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta met with Iraqi spy in Prague, a claim he'll repeat long after CIA and Czechs disavow.
12/12/01 -- Rumsfeld demands plan for war against Iraq. Gen. Tommy Franks proposes softening up Iraq: "I'm thinking in terms of spikes, Mr. Secretary. Spurts of activity followed by periods of inactivity."
12/22/01 -- Shoe bomber Richard Reid tries to blow up an AA flight from Paris to Miami.
12/28/01 -- Gen. Franks briefs Bush on Iraq war plans.
Early 2002 -- Bush approves "The Program," which permits NSA to surveil U.S. citizens without a warrant, court approval, or sign-off from the Justice Dept.
Jan. 2002 -- FBI, which favors standard law enforcement interrogation practices, loses debate with CIA Director George Tenet, and al-Libi is transferred to CIA custody. Al-Libi is then rendered to Egypt. "They duct-taped his mouth, cinched him up and sent him to Cairo," an FBI agent told reporters. "At the airport the CIA case officer goes up to him and says, 'You're going to Cairo, you know. Before you get there, I am going to find your mother and I'm going to fuck her.'" Under torture, al-Libi invents tale of Al Qaeda operatives receiving chemical weapons training from Iraq. "This is the problem with using the waterboard. They get so desperate that they begin telling you what they think you want to hear," a CIA source later tells ABC.
1/9/02 -- Yoo memo to Pentagon brass declares that the laws of war, including the Geneva Conventions, do not apply to the conflict in Afghanistan.
1/11/02 -- William Howard Taft IV, the State Dept.'s chief legal adviser, responds to Yoo: "Your position is, at this point, erroneous in its substance and untenable in practice. Let's talk."
1/11/02 -- First 20 detainees arrive at Guantanamo.
1/22/02 -- Navy photo released showing detainees bound and hooded. Rumsfeld defends the detentions of "committed terrorists."
1/23/02 -- Pakistani militants kidnap Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.
1/25/02 -- White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales echoes Yoo: "In my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions."
1/27/02 -- Cheney calls Gitmo detainees "the worst of a very bad lot. They are very dangerous. They are devoted to killing millions of Americans."
1/29/02 -- Bush delivers "Axis of Evil" State of the Union. Speechwriter David Frum later says phrase was the fruit of being asked: "Can you sum up in a sentence or two our best case for going after Iraq?"
Early Feb. 2002: Daniel Pearl beheaded.
Feb. 2002 -- "I was asked by one of the senior commanders of Central Command to go into his office. We did, the door was closed, and he turned to me, and he said, 'Senator, we have stopped fighting the war on terror in Afghanistan. We are moving military and intelligence personnel and resources out of Afghanistan to get ready for a future war in Iraq.'" -- Sen. Bob Graham.
Feb. 2002 -- DIA intelligence summary notes that al-Libi's "confession" lacks details and suggests that he is most likely telling interrogators what he thinks will "retain their interest." Also states: "Saddam's regime is intensely secular and is wary of Islamic revolutionary movements. Moreover, Baghdad is unlikely to provide assistance to a group it cannot control."
2/7/02 -- Presidential directive defines Taliban and Al Qaeda detainees as "enemy combatants" exempt from prisoner-of-war protections.
2/12/02 -- Attorney General John Ashcroft calls on "all Americans to be on the highest state of alert."
2/13/02 -- Total Information Awareness program leaked.
2/26/02 -- Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson sent to Niger to check out claims Iraq buying uranium-rich yellowcake.
March 2002 -- "Fuck Saddam. We're taking him out." -- George Bush
March 2002 -- "Fuck Saddam. We're taking him out." -- Bush to Rice and three senators.
March 2002 -- As The New Yorker later reports: "Chalabi's defector reports were now flowing from the Pentagon directly to the Vice President's office, and then on to the President, with little prior evaluation by intelligence professionals."