A Year of Crucial Missteps

April 5, 2003

U.S. troops enter Baghdad; Saddam Hussein makes his last public appearance in front of the Abu Hanifa mosque.

May 1

President George W. Bush announces that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended"; soon after, General Tommy Franks moves his headquarters from Qatar to Tampa, Fla. may Saddam meets secretly in a car in Baghdad with four advisers, including a representative of Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri (Saddam's former No. 2) and Muhammad Yunis al-Ahmed of the top-secret Military Bureau. Saddam tells them to start "rebuilding your networks" and later sends instructions on how to conduct a guerrilla war.

May 23

On Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's orders, U.S. proconsul L. Paul Bremer issues a decree to disband the Iraqi army and civil service. Critics say the move created 400,000 disgruntled unemployed soldiers and civil servants.

May 30

The Americans' Iraq Survey Group, later led by David Kay, is established to search for weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Critics say the effort drew valuable intelligence assets away from the effort to fight the insurgency.

June 13

Lieut. General David McKiernan, head of the U.S. military's land component, is ordered to move his headquarters to Florida, removing from Iraq hundreds of intelligence officers. Some U.S. intelligence officials view the loss of these assets as the gravest error in the battle against the insurgency. General Ricardo Sanchez, who takes over, has to restart intelligence gathering essentially from scratch.

Aug. 7

The insurgency enters a violent new phase as a car bomb explodes at the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad, killing 19 people; 12 days later, a truck bomb explodes at U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, killing 23, including Special Envoy to Iraq Vieira de Mello.

Oct. 27

Attacks on Iraqi police stations kill 34 people, after Saddam calls on insurgents to focus on Iraqi security and police forces rather than coalition troops. Former members of his Baathist Party help facilitate passage of suicide bombers, in the first evidence of collaboration between former regime elements and al-Qaeda's Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi.

November

A force of 100 insurgents wages a pitched battle with U.S. forces in the city of Samarra, the deadliest clash to date.

Dec. 13

Saddam is captured near Tikrit, along with a briefcase full of documents.

Dec. 17

Having found no evidence of WMD, Kay announces that he will leave Iraq.