2005 saw a number of political watersheds, including national assembly elections and constitutional referendums. The contests pitted the country’s three biggest ethnic-religious groupings – Shi’ites, Sunnis and Kurds – against one another for domination of the parliament and government.
The year was also punctuated by constant insurgent attacks on US and Iraqi troops and a number of major US-led offensives, particularly in the west of the country near Iraq’s border with Syria.
JANUARY
30 January: Iraqis go to polls for the first democratic elections in half a century to elect 275 members of a transitional national assembly. Sunnis, representing some 20 percent of the population, largely boycott the vote. Insurgent groups reportedly warn that they would kill Sunni Muslims who voted.
FEBRUARY
14 February: The Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq (IECI) announces the results of the election: 141 seats go to the Shi'ite United Iraq Alliance; 75 to the Kurdistan Alliance; 40 to interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's National Iraqi List; and 5 to interim President Ghazi Yawar’s independent list.
The remaining 14 seats are won by representatives of minority groups, such as Turkomans, Christians and Assyrians. The Shi’ite United Iraqi Alliance obtains an absolute majority in parliament, thanks in part to support from Shi’ite religious leader Ayatollah Ali Sistani, ahead of the main Kurdish coalition formed by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP).
28 February: A car bomb explodes in the mainly Shi'ite town of Hilla, some 120 km from the capital, Baghdad, leaving at least 125 people dead and more than 200 injured. The attack is seen as a response from insurgents to the election results.
MARCH
7 March: Ibrahim al-Jaafari, of the Shi’ite United Iraqi Alliance, is chosen as interim prime minister. The vote is followed by indignation from Sunni leaders – and intensive insurgent attacks – who complain of US coalition interference in the division of parliamentary seats.
16 March: The elected transitional national assembly meets for the first time amid tight security without reaching agreement on the formation of a new government.
APRIL
6 April: Jalal Talabani is chosen as Iraq's new interim president, the first Kurd to hold such an exalted post in Iraq's modern history.
27 April: Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, under enormous pressure from political rivals, forms a cabinet almost three months after elections.
MAY
7 May: US troops launch an offensive in the city of al-Qaim, some 320 km west of the capital, against insurgents linked with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, head of al-Qaeda in Iraq, believed to be taking refuge in the city. The offensive, codenamed “Operation Matador,” is one of the biggest since militants were driven from the city of Fallujah by US forces in late 2004, and results in the displacement of several thousand civilian residents.
23 May: Prime Minister al-Jaafari announces that the death penalty would be reinstated as a means of controlling the ongoing insurgency.
JUNE
16 June: Kurds and Shi’ite leaders agree to include Sunni representatives in a parliamentary committee charged with drafting a new constitution in compensation for the lack of Sunni representation in the legislature. On the same day, a suicide bomber kills at least 98 people near a Shi'ite mosque in the town of Mussayib, near Karbala.
17 June: US-led offensive “Operation Spear” is launched, the second in the western Anbar governorate, resulting in over 7,000 families being displaced to surrounding areas.
25 June: The Iraqi government announces that the former dictator Saddam Hussein would be charged with 12 counts of crimes against humanity. Accusations included the execution of more than 145 Iraqis in 1982 in Dujail; the murder of nearly 5,000 people in the Kurdish town of Halabja in 1988; the execution of key political and religious leaders during his 35 years in power; the killing and deportation of more than 10,000 members of the Kurdish Barzani tribe; the 1991 suppression of a Shi'ite uprising in southern Iraq; and the illegal occupation of Kuwait in 1991.
AUGUST
28 August: A final draft of the constitution is ratified by parliament after weeks of wrangling. The 13-day delay in approving the new charter raises tensions between political groupings. Sunni Arabs reject the new constitution, calling it “illegitimate.”
SEPTEMBER
1 September: Nearly 1,300 people are killed and 1,500 injured when Shi’ite pilgrims stampede on a bridge spanning the Tigris River in northern Baghdad after rumours of a suicide bomber.
On the same day, the first death sentences in Iraq since US-led forces invaded the country in April 2003 are handed down in the city of Kut, 172 km southeast of Baghdad, to four men accused of kidnapping and rape. The death penalty, used against criminals in the era of former Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein, was abolished by US forces in 2003, but reinstated in August 2004 during the rule of former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.
10 September: US and Iraqi forces launch an offensive in the northern city of Talafar, causing over 10,000 families to flee the city.
14 September: Al-Zarqawi declares all-out war on the majority Shi’ite community. A suicide bomber kills 128 and wounds over 150 in a crowded Shi'ite district of Baghdad while gunmen kill 17 people north of the city.
17 September: The number of displaced from Talafar rises from an estimated 10,000 to 20,000.
18 September: A final draft of the constitution is sent for printing after weeks of disagreement between political leaders over various sticking points. The document is sent to the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), which prints and distributes five million copies in advance of an October referendum.
26 September: Hundreds of families are reported fleeing the city of Samara, some 120 km north of the capital, following a defence ministry announcement that preparations are underway for a coalition offensive against insurgents there.
29 September: 98 people are killed in three coordinated car bomb attacks in the mixed Shi'ite-Sunni town of Balad.
OCTOBER
1 October: A US offensive in the city of al-Qaim, western Iraq leaves more than 3,000 families displaced.
5 October: Nearly 1,000 families flee their homes in Haditha, 220 km west of Baghdad, following the launch of an offensive against insurgents.
13 October: The Iraqi parliament introduces a series of last-minute amendments to the constitution aimed at winning support from the country’s largely hostile Sunni community. The amendments dilute the constitution’s commitment to federalism and permit the revision of the document by a new parliament to be elected in December.
15 October: 78 percent of Iraqis endorse the draft constitution in a national referendum relatively free of violence, the government said. The IECI announces that 69 percent of Iraq’s 14 million registered voters turned out to cast ballots, considered an improvement on the 58-percent turnout seen in January’s parliamentary election.
19 October: Saddam Hussein and seven former lieutenants go on trial for the 1982 massacre of 148 Shi’ites from the town of Dujail, north of the capital. Hussein supporters in the Sunni community demonstrate in the streets, demanding that US-led forces be put in the dock instead.
NOVEMBER
5 November: The IECI announces that 228 coalitions and political entities are registered to participate in Iraqi parliamentary elections scheduled for 15 December. Unlike in the last vote, Sunni leaders pledge their full participation.
6 November: The Japanese government agrees to write off 80 percent of debt owed it by Iraq, giving local reconstruction efforts a badly needed boost.
8 November: Security Council resolution 1637 extends the term of multinational forces in Iraq “until the end of next year,” allowing for “a review of that mandate at any time, no later than mid-June 2006, or for its termination, at the request of the Iraqi Government.” The decision is badly received by Iraqis who accuse the government of being under the thumb of the US.
13 November: 173 detainees are found by US troops in an interior ministry building in Baghdad, many bearing signs of malnutrition and mistreatment. In response, Interim Prime Minister al-Jaafari orders an investigation into allegations of abuse.
20 November: Thousands of families from the town of Talafar, some 80 km east of the northern city of Mosul, begin receiving monetary damages for losses incurred during US-led military operations in September.
22 November: Participants in a conference aimed at “Iraqi reconciliation” reach an agreement in the Egyptian capital, Cairo. The final document to emerge from the conference includes a request for the withdrawal of foreign forces conditional on the building of well-trained and sufficiently equipped Iraqi armed forces.
DECEMBER
6 December: The trial of Saddam Hussein is denounced as unfair by defence lawyers, due to the use of anonymous witnesses.
12 December: Iraqi expatriates in 15 countries, as well as prisoners and hospital patients in Iraq, began voting ahead of parliamentary elections to be held on 15 December.
14 December: CIVIC, a Washington-based humanitarian organisation, urges the US government to count and identify civilian casualties of the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq, following statements by US President George Bush that 30,000 Iraqi civilians had been killed.
A report on civilian casualties in Iraq from 2003 to 2005, published by non-governmental organisation Iraq Body Count in association with the Oxford Research Group, documents the killing of 30,892 civilians in the first two years of the occupation. Some 30 percent of these were killed in the initial invasion. UNAMI reports between 20,000 and 30,000 civilian deaths.
15 December: Despite threats of violence, Iraqis descended on polling stations to choose the country’s first full-term, democratically-elected parliament. Nearly 200,000 security personnel maintain order while more than 120,000 independent observers monitor the elections, according to officials.
17 December: The IECI announces a 70 percent turnout for the elections, but says 200 reported cases of fraud could delay final results. Violations in 18 polling stations countrywide are reported by IECI officials who launch an investigation.
20 December: Sunni Arab parties claim the results of the parliamentary contests are inaccurate after initial results show nearly 59 percent of the vote going to the Shi’ite United Iraqi Alliance. Sunnis represent about 20 percent of the Iraqi population, while Shi’ites are generally recognised as comprising about 60 percent.
29 December: UN Special Representative for Iraq Ashraf Jehangir Qazi welcomed a decision by the International Mission for Iraqi Elections (IMIE) to establish a team of assessors, including two representatives from the Arab League, to conduct a review of its interim report, released on 15 December.
30 December: The IECI announces that final results of parliamentary elections would be released on or around 15 January 2006.
