Morning:
9°c
Six-year war that has cost 178 british lives
Evening Standard17.12.08
2003
21 March: British ground troops enter Iraq from south, taking Basra in days.
9 April: US forces advance into central Baghdad.
14 December: Saddam Hussein captured in Tikrit.
2004
June: US hands sovereignty to interim government.
2005
30 January: Estimated eight million vote in Iraqi elections. The Shia United Iraqi Alliance wins majority of assembly.
July: Study by non-governmental organisation estimates nearly 25,000 civilians killed since invasion.
2006
May and June: An average of more than 100 civilians a day killed in violence in Iraq, the UN says.
30 December: Saddam Hussein executed by hanging.
2007
January: US President Bush announces "surge" strategy, sending thousands more troops to Baghdad.
December: Britain hands over security of Basra province to Iraqi forces.
2008
March: Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki orders crackdown on militia in Basra, sparking pitched battles with Moqtada Sadr's Mehdi Army and causing delay to UK troop withdrawal hopes.
November: The Iraqi parliament approves a security pact with the United States under which all US troops are due to leave the country by the end of 2011.
December: Gordon Brown announces nearly all British troops to leave Iraq by July 2009.
