The United States on Thursday formally ended their nine-year mission in Iraq, which began with the invasion to oust Saddam Hussein, with a low-key ceremony in Baghdad.
Rediff.com takes a look at some defining moments of the nine-year war in Iraq.
The cross-country foot march stayed in the news almost right through, mostly for the barbs between the BJP and the Congress and occasionally for other reasons, including infighting in the opposition party.
British government officials drafted a 'contract with the Iraqi people' to boost an internal coup against former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein two years before the invasion of Iraq, The Independent reported.
"Mubarak said that when President Bush Sr had called and asked what Mubarak thought about invading Iraq to get to rid of Saddam Hussein during the first Gulf war, Mubarak had told him not to because 'you won't be able to get out and you will drown in Iraq,'" according to cables released by WikiLeaks.
An agent linked to disgraced Pakistani scientist A Q Khan had offered Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in 1990 that they could build an atomic bomb for him in three years under a US $ 150 million "nuclear package deal," according to a new book.
Saddam Hussein's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid or 'Chemical Ali' was executed on Monday, an Iraqi government official said, a week after he received a fourth death sentence.
'If there is to be real peace in Sri Lanka, the end of Prabhakaran has to be brought about by the Tamils themselves and not by the Sinhalese army.'
Iraqi counter-terrorism squad has arrested up to 35 Iraqi Interior Ministry officials, including four generals, for plotting a coup to reinstate the Baath Party of former dictator Saddam Hussein, a media report said on Thursday.
Addressing a 'Hindu Panchayat' in Sitapur, Togadia said Hindus hesitate from openly speaking on the issues concerning their society.
Most countries are opposed to the death penalty.
ONGC Videsh Ltd, overseas arm of state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, is likely to invest $1.45 billion in an oil block in Iraq that was awarded to it by the erstwhile Saddam Hussein regime. The contract would be a service contract wherein OVL will be paid about 18 per cent rate of return on its investment.
Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein pretended to possess weapons of mass destruction to prevent a possible Iranian attack but never thought that America would invade Iraq and overthrow him. The deposed Iraqi dictator, who was executed in 2006, revealed this information to Federal Bureau of Investigation's special agent George Piro, who interrogated him after his capture in 2003.
Barzan Ibrahim, Saddam's half brother and former intelligence chief, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar head of Iraq's Revolutionary Court, were involved in the killing of 148 Shiite Muslims in 1982.
Twelve people, including two girls, were injured in running battles between protesters and police lasting several hours.
Reports said the former Iraqi dictator had been handed over to Iraqi authorities for execution and his lawyers had been asked to collect his personal belongings.
'The proceedings in the Dujail trial were fundamentally unfair'.
The report has named Natwar Singh as a beneficiary.
Among others to be named are a member of British Parliament, a right-wing politician in Russia and a former senior aide to Putin, the report said.
But David Kay, who quit as chief weapons inspector, cleared the White House of using US intelligence agencies to build a case for war by creating a false impression of Saddam's WMD.
The US defence secretary called the deposed Iraqi president a 'vicious and brutal dictator'.
The two men had been found guilty of crimes against the civilian population of the town of Dujail in 1982.
The grotesque irony is that while Hussein was hanged for killing 148 people, the leaders of the US and its allies won't be tried for killing half-a-million Iraqi children through the post-1991 sanctions, nor for the death of 655,000 Iraqi civilians.
'There are double standards in terms of who is accused of crimes against humanity. I am yet to hear of any white Westerner who stands so accused, although there are some deserving candidates.'
Will Iraq be torn apart by more violence?
Talking to newsmen in Bangalore on Monday, Sharief said Saddam's hanging was nothing, but a "brutal act committed by United States and its ally Britain."
Ban has not taken any stand on the fairness or otherwise of the trial, the UN said.
Does the new UN secretary-general support the death penalty? He won't say clearly.
The world body's headquarters was closed on Saturday and the statement of Qazi was posted on its website.
"The execution of the death sentence will be a form of judicial assassination," the CPI(M) said, urging all sections of the people to protest the death sentence.
'It is in the interests of everybody, including those named in the report, to have the truth established,' says UN Under Secretary General Shashi Tharoor.
During his tenure, Dayal will also act as the special envoy of the government of India and hence liaise with the united Nations to go into the depth of the allegations made by Volcker.
The incident occured when thousands of Shias marching across a bridge in a religious procession heard rumours that a suicide bomber was about to attack, triggering a stampede.
According to the report, post war findings intimate Saddam Hussein "as distrustful of al-Qaeda and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime".
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