Sept. 11, 2001 – Hijackers crash two airplanes into the world trade center in new york. A third strikes the Pentagon and a fourth in a field in rural Pennsylvania. More than 3,000 people are killed in the terror attacks.
Sept. 13, 2001 – The White House announces that there is “overwhelming evidence” that terrorist leader Osama bin Laden is behind the attacks.
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Sept. 18, 2001 – The Justice Department publishes an interim regulation allowing non-citizens suspected of terrorism to be detained without charge for 48 hours or “an additional reasonable period of time” in the event of an “emergency or other extraordinary circumstance.”
President Bush declares, “Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.”
Oct. 2, 2001 – The USA Patriot Act is introduced in Congress.
Oct. 7, 2001 – The U.S., U.K., Australia and Afghan United Front launch Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan to dismantle al-Qaeda and remove the country’s Taliban regime to establish a democracy.
Oct. 26, 2001 – President Bush signs the USA Patriot Act into law.
Dec. 11, 2001 – In the first criminal indictments stemming from the 9/11 attacks, Zacarias Moussaoui, a French citizen of Moroccan descent, is charged with conspiring with Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda to “murder thousands of people” in New York, the Pentagon and Pennsylvania.
Dec. 17, 2001 – The Northern Alliance defeats Taliban forces in the battle of Tora Bora, eliminating the last major pocket of Taliban resistance and effectively ending the Afghan war.
May 20-24, 2002 – The Bush administration issues an unprecedented series of terror warnings. Vice President Cheney warns it is “not a matter of if, but when” al Qaeda will next attack the U.S.
March 19, 2003 – The U.S. invades Iraq
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April 9, 2003 – Statue of Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s president for nearly 24 years, is toppled.
July 22, 2003 – Saddam’s sons, Uday and Qusay, are killed in a U.S. raid in Mosul, Iraq.
Oct. 7, 2004 – An investigation called the “Duelfer Report” reveals that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction at the time of the U.S. invasion in March 2003 and had not begun any program to produce them, as previously alleged by the Bush administration.
Nov. 5, 2006 – Iraq’s High Tribunal on Sunday finds Saddam Hussein guilty of crimes against humanity and sentences him to hang for the 1982 killing of 148 Shiites in the city of Dujail.
Aug. 31, 2010 – The seven-year war in Iraq comes to an end, at the order of President Obama. The president said that the U.S. needed to focus on issues on the homefront, explaining it had already fulfilled its obligation to Iraq.
Dec. 21, 2010 – After nine months of political infighting, Iraq’s Parliament approves its new government. The move averted throwing the nation into a constitutional crisis.
Source: Think Progress
Collegian Writer Haleigh Hamblin can be reached at news@collegian.com.
