Iraq Occupation Timeline
October - December 2004
The final quarter of 2004 is dominated by the city-siege and assault on Fallujah, and the United States presidential elections. A survey of Iraqi households, conducted by a Johns Hopkins University medical team and published in The Lancet, estimates as many as 100,000 Iraqis have been killed since the U.S. invasion in March 2003. A separate survey by UN and European aid agencies with the Iraqi ministry of health finds the rate of acute malnutrition among Iraqi children has nearly doubled in the same period. A number of journalists and aid workers lose their lives in the escalating violence between occupation forces and an increasingly organized resistance. Doctors Without Borders and CARE-International close operations in Iraq.
This period sees an Iraqi electoral commission established for the upcoming January 30 vote, and Sunni groups withdraw from that process, citing their anger over the siege of Fallujah. The U.S. announces it will increase its troop presence to the highest level yet.
October 2
The National Memorial Procession - A Trail of Mourning and Truth from Iraq to the White House takes place to honor all those killed and wounded in the war in Iraq.
October 7
The top aide to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr announces that, as part of a peace initiative, Shiite militiamen will hand over their weapons in Baghdad's Sadr City and other areas.
October 12
Iraq regains its vote at the United Nations after the UN General Assembly concludes that Iraq's failure to pay its dues is beyond Iraq's control.
October 14
Karam Hussein, an Iraqi photographer working for a European photo agency, is killed in front of his home in the northern city of Mosul. Today is the beginning of Ramadan.
October 19
Margaret Hassan, director of CARE International in Iraq, is kidnapped from her car in Baghdad.
October 20
Scott Peterson, a reporter for the Christian Science Monitor, estimates 80 percent of the population of 300,000 in Fallujah have fled the city.
October 24
Iraqi authorities report 49 unarmed Iraqi national guard soldiers are found shot dead on a road near the Iranian border, where they were returning from a training session.
October 25
Reported missing are 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives from one of Iraq's most sensitive former military installations. The huge facility, called Al Qaqaa, was under U.S. military control.
October 26
Iraq Body Count releases its report, No Longer Unknowable, finding that 600 of the 800 deaths in the April 2004 siege in Fallujah were civilians.
October 28
CARE International closes down all operations in Iraq.
October 29
The Lancet publishes a survey that estimates as many as 100,000 Iraqis have been killed since the U.S. invasion. The Pentagon orders 6,500 soldiers in Iraq to extend their tours to increase power in preparation for the January elections.
October 30
A huge bomb outside the Al-Arabiya news agency in Baghdad kills five employees and two others. It is the biggest attack against a news organization since the occupation began last year.
November 1
Dhia Najim, an Iraqi cameraman, is killed by a sniper in the embattled western city of Ramadi. He was working for Reuters and also provided footage to Associated Press Television News. He is the thirty-sixth journalist to be killed in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. Iraqi journalists, 17 of whom died on duty this year, now compose nearly half of the toll.
November 2
U.S. presidential elections put George W. Bush back in the White House for four more years.
November 4
The medical relief agency Doctors Without Borders announces it is ending operations in Iraq because of deteriorating security.
November 7
Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi declares martial law for most of Iraq for the next two months, which will lead up to the elections.
November 7-8
A crushing air and artillery bombardment of Fallujah signals the beginning of an assault that uses an estimated 10,000 U.S. troops, plus Iraqi support.
November 9
Iraq's most prominent Sunni party, the Iraq Islamic Party, declares it is withdrawing from the interim Iraqi government. The Muslim Scholars Association, a group of respected Sunni clerics, calls for a boycott of the January elections.
November 13
Ramadan ends.
November 16
Margaret Hassan is killed by her captors.
November 22
A new report from the UN, aid agencies, and the Iraqi government finds acute malnutrition among young children in Iraq has nearly doubled since the U.S.-led invasion. The new figure translates to roughly 400,000 Iraqi children suffering from "wasting," a condition characterized by chronic diarrhea and deficiencies of protein.
November 22
Iraqi authorities set January 30, 2005, as the date for the nation's first election.
December 1
The Pentagon announces the increase of troops in Iraq by 12,000. It will lead to the highest troop level of the war, greater than the initial invading force of March 2003. U.S. forces will grow from 139,000 today to about 150,000 by mid-January.
December 9
Twenty-three Shiite political groups unite under the United Iraqi Alliance in preparation for January's elections. The coalition is backed by leading Shiite cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
December 9
The Pentagon confirms to United Press International that a total of 955,000 troops from all military services had been deployed for Operation Iraqi Freedom or Enduring Freedom by the end of September. More than 300,000 of those military personnel were deployed more than once, the Pentagon said.
December 12
Iraq Revenue Watch finds that the U.S. government after 13 months has only expended 7.1 percent of the $18.4 billion Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund. A report from the Office of Inspector General Coalition Provisional Authority finds, "[O]verall, of the $24.1 billion in U.S. funds appropriated for Iraq to date, about $13 billion has been obligated and only $5.2 billion expended."
December 16
The Iraqi election campaign officially begins.
December 17
Sec. of State Colin Powell, Sec. of the Treasury John Snow, and Iraqi Finance Minister Adil Abd al-Mahdi sign an agreement canceling Iraq's $4.1 billion debt to the United States.
December 19
Car bombings by Sunni insurgents in Najaf and Karbala kill 67 Iraqis and wound 120 others. In Baghdad, three election officials are executed after being pulled from their cars.
December 21
An attack kills 24 people, including 19 U.S. soldiers, inside the mess tent of a U.S. military base in Mosul. Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, two French journalists held hostage in Iraq since August, are freed.
December 27
Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of Iraq's largest Shia party - the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution - escapes a car bomb attack that kills nine security guards and wounds 67 outside the party's headquarters.
December 28
Coordinated attacks against police and national guard take place. In Baghdad, a booby-trapped house explodes, killing at least 28, including police. In Tikrit, twelve Iraqi police are killed in an attack on the station; in Baquba a car bomb kills five Iraqi national guardsmen and one civilian. Twenty Iraqi soldiers are wounded. A separate roadside bomb wounds four guardsmen.
December 29
U.S. troops kill 25 guerrillas in Mosul in response to coordinated attacks, including two suicide bombs the day before.
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