Timeline
January 2, 2008
California sues the federal Environmental Protection Agency for preventing the state from reducing greenhouse gas emissions in its cars.
Passed in 2002, the Clean Car law requires cars sold in California to emit 30 percent fewer greenhouse gases by 2020. Because the law is stricter than federal Clean Air Act standards, California had to ask the EPA for permission. Such waivers are routinely granted for tailpipe emission laws, and federal courts recently supported California's rights to make such demands, but in late December the EPA refused.
The alleged leader of US troops who killed 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians in 2005 in Haditha will not face murder charges, a U.S. Marines spokesman says. Sgt. Frank Wuterich, 27, will stand trial for voluntary manslaughter, aggravated assault, dereliction of duty and other charges.
January 3, 2008
January 8, 2008
Maj. Gen. Richard Rowe, the convening authority for Lt. Col. Jordan's court-martial, dismisses guilty verdict, gives Jordan an administrative reprimand instead, and clears his record of any criminal act.
January 23, 2008
Blasts and bullets kill at least 21 people in Iraq, among them 12 who die when a powerful booby-trap flattens buildings in the northern city of Mosul. The following day, a provincial police chief is killed by a suicide bomber as he surveys the wreckage.
January 24, 2008
The Kentucky Supreme Court affirms the suspension of former county attorney Donald “Champ” Maze on Thursday. The court’s ruling upholds an automatic suspension of Maze imposed by the Kentucky Bar Association after Maze pleaded guilty to vote buying and perjury in connection with a May 2006 primary corruption scheme. Six others have pleaded guilty in connection with the case.
January 28, 2008
In his State of the Union Address, Bush announces: "I will issue an executive order that directs federal agencies to ignore any future earmark that is not voted on by Congress."
What Bush doesn't mention is that he already signed a spending bill including 11,000 earmarks, many of which will benefit Republicans running for re-election. And since no more spending bills are likely to come before him before he leaves office, no such restrictions will apply to him; only to his successor, who could presumably overturn the order.
Curiously, Bush never raised such vociferous objections to earmarks during the six years of his Presidency that the Republicans had a majority in Congress.
Five U.S. soldiers are killed in Mosul when their convoy is attacked by a combination of a roadside bomb and a barrage of gunfire.
February 1, 2008
J.P. Morgan fleeced school districts out of millions, Bloomberg News reports.
February 8, 2008
The Bush administration acknowledges for the first time that the CIA used waterboarding on suspected al-Qaida terrorists, and the current CIA director says the simulated drowning technique may be illegal now.
Democrats ask Attorney General Michael Mukasey whether he would prosecute those who used the controversial technique. He says, bluntly, no.
February 13, 2008
February 13, 2008:
February 15, 2008
Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt proposes boosting Medicare premiums for higher-income beneficiaries. House Energy and Commerce chair John Dingell (D-Mich.) responds, "This proposal shows us exactly where Republicans stand when it comes to helping seniors and people with disabilities. The president's idea for 'improving' the program is to stick the beneficiaries with more of the bill."
February 20, 2008
Febuary 23, 2008
A barrage of rockets hits Baghdad's heavily fortified, U.S.-protected Green Zone, just a day after powerful Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ordered his Mahdi Army militia to extend its cease-fire by another six months.
The federal government prepares to relax a decades-old ban on bringing loaded firearms into national parks.
February 25, 2008
The Associated Press reports that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas hasn't spoken once during his past two years on the bench, during which time the court has heard oral arguments in 144 cases.
February 26, 2008
After promising last year to search its computers for tens of thousands of e-mails sent by White House officials, the Republican National Committee informs a House committee that it no longer plans to retrieve the communications by restoring computer backup tapes.
February 27, 2008
The Air Force tightens restrictions on which blogs its troops can read, cutting off access to just about any independent site with the word "blog" in its web address. One senior Air Force official calls the squeeze so "utterly stupid, it makes me want to scream."
February 29, 2008
February 29, 2008: U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey says he will not ask a federal grand jury to investigate whether two top Bush administration officials should be prosecuted for contempt of Congress. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Thursday asked Mukasey to look into whether White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet Miers committed contempt of Congress in the investigation of the 2006 firings of several U.S. attorneys.
Pelosi says the two were unresponsive to Congress’ inquiry, while the White House argues that contempt laws don’t apply to the president or any of his staffers who invoke executive privilege.
Mukasey, a Bush appointee, agrees.
“The department has determined that the noncompliance by Mr. Bolten and Ms. Miers with the Judiciary Committee subpoenas did not constitute a crime,” Mukasey writes in a letter to Pelosi.
“Therefore the department will not bring the congressional contempt citations before a grand jury or take any other action to prosecute Mr. Bolten or Ms. Miers.”
Mukasey says Miers and Bolten cannot be prosecuted because they were following legal advice from the Justice Department.
The price of oil reaches a record high of $103 per barrel before retreating to $102.
March 1, 2008
Britain's denials that its territories have been used for 'extraordinary rendition' are dramatically undermined after the United Nations claims that Diego Garcia has been used as a detention centre to hold US suspects.
Manfred Novak, the United Nations' special rapporteur on torture, who is charged with investigating human rights abuses, says he has received credible evidence from well-placed sources familiar with the situation on the island that detainees were held on Diego Garcia between 2002 and 2003.
March 1, 2008
A public relations aide to President George W Bush resigns after admitting to plagiarising an academic in a newspaper column on education. Timothy Goeglein had worked for the president since 2001.
March 2, 2008
March 3, 2008
The price of oil jumps to an inflation adjusted record high of $103.95.
March 4, 2008
Nearly a year after the Supreme Court ordered him to do so, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency tells a Senate hearing he can't say when he determine whether greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles should be regulated. In a tense exchange with a Senator Dianne Feinstein, EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson suggests that few, if any, people at the agency are directly working on the issue now. The high court in April 2007 said the EPA was required to determine whether carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases posed a danger to public health. Feinstein accuses Johnson of "stonewalling" and says she finds it strange that the EPA chief "can't give me a number (of people engaged) on something that is a Supreme Court finding."
Drug makers increased their prices in 2007 by an average of 7.4 percent for brand-name medicines most commonly prescribed to the elderly, AARP reports. The increase was about 2.5 times overall inflation, continuing a long-standing trend. AARP, which has been tracking drug prices since 2002, notes that the price increases have been slightly greater since the Medicare drug benefit kicked in on Jan. 1, 2006.
An Iraqi military helicopter crashes in northern Iraq, killing an American soldier and seven Iraqis aboard. The crash is a blow to the Iraqi military's efforts to rebuild its air force, which was devastated during the 1991 Persian Gulf War and never recovered.
Condoleezza Rice insists a peace deal between Israel and Palestine could still be in place by the time president George Bush leaves office in January, even though the Palestinian leadership has just rejected her appeal to resume talks. An Israeli offensive on Hamas rocket-launching positions in Gaza has killed more than 100 Palestinians, many of them noncombatants.
March 5, 2008
A Justice Department report says the FBI abused the use of national security letters to get personal data on U.S. citizens through at least 2006. The agency has been criticized for its use of the anti-terror investigatory tactic, which a federal judge has barred as unconstitutional.
March 6, 2008
Oil prices hit another record high, spiking at $105.97.
A twin bombing in a packed Baghdad shopping district kills at least 68 people and wounds 120, a grim reminder that Iraq's violence has slackened but not abated.
March 7, 2008
Oil prices hit a new high of over $106 a barrel. Adjusted for inflation, oil prices are higher than during the 1973 Arab oil embargo.
The Interior Department's inspector general begins a preliminary investigation into why the department has delayed for nearly two months a decision on whether to list the polar bear as threatened because of the loss of Arctic Sea ice.
Employers slash jobs by the largest amount in five years and hundreds of thousands of people drop out of the labor force -- ominous signs that the country is falling toward a recession or has already toppled into one.
U.S. soldiers and Marines caught in roadside bombings and firefights in Iraq and Afghanistan are coming home in epidemic numbers with permanent hearing loss and ringing in their ears.
An extremist attacks a police station in the northern Iraq city of Mosul, driving his explosives-laden car through protective barriers before detonating it outside the station's front gate, killing at least three and wounding 32.
The Internal Revenue Service is spending $42 million on letters to alert taxpayers to expect rebate checks as part of the economic stimulus plan. "There are countless better uses for $42 million than a self-congratulatory mailer that gives the president a pat on the back for an idea that wasn't even his," Sen. Charles Schumer said Friday, arguing the IRS could more effectively spend the money to catch tax cheats.
March 8, 2008
Bush says he will veto a bill banning waterboarding.
A longtime Republican district in Illinois falls to the Democrats when a wealthy businessman and scientist snatches former House Speaker Dennis Hastert's congressional seat in a closely watched special election. Democrat Bill Foster wins 53 percent of the vote compared to 47 percent for Republican Jim Oberweis.
March 9, 2008
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will have cost $1.2 to $1.7 trillion by 2017, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office forecasts, with Iraq accounting for three-quarters of that cost. Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and co-author Linda Barnes report in a new book that the cost of the Iraq war in 2008 will be $12 billion a month, triple the burn rate of its earliest years. Interest on money borrowed to pay those costs could alone add $816 billion to that bottom line, they say.
After nearly two decades of low food inflation, prices for staples such as bread, milk, eggs, and flour are rising sharply, surging in the past year at double-digit rates, according to the Labor Department. Milk prices, for example, increased 26 percent over the year. Egg prices jumped 40 percent. Escalating food costs could present a greater problem than soaring oil prices for the national economy because the average household spends three times as much for food as for gasoline.
Around 6 am, a roadside bomb explodes in Baghdad's Karrada neighborhood. No casualties or damage recorded. Around 7am, two roadside bombs explodes in sequence at near a Baghdad gas factory. One person is killed and another injured. Police found two dead bodies in Baghdad today. In Diyala Province, the Iraqi army finds a mass grave of 6 dead men, who were handcuffed, blindfolded and shots sometime in the past few months.
A roadside bomb planted on top of a rescue car in downtown Tikrit explodes, killing an officer and injuring two others. In downtown Mosul, a car bomb targeting a joint forces patrol (Iraqi army and police) kills two and injures five.
March 10, 2008
Dozens of U.S. troops in Iraq fell sick at bases using "unmonitored and potentially unsafe" water supplied by the military and a contractor once owned by Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, the Pentagon's internal watchdog says.
A report obtained by The Associated Press said soldiers experienced skin abscesses, cellulitis, skin infections, diarrhea and other illnesses after using discolored, smelly water for personal hygiene and laundry at five U.S. military sites in Iraq. The Defense Department's inspector general's report, which could be released as early as Monday, found water quality problems between March 2004 and February 2006 at three sites run by contractor KBR Inc., and between January 2004 and December 2006 at two military-operated locations.
Five U.S. soldiers on a foot patrol are killed in central Baghdad when a suicide bomber approaches them and detonates his explosives vest. Three American troops and an Iraqi interpreter are wounded. Iraqi police say two civilians also are killed in the attack.
The bombing shows the insurgents' ability to strike in the heart of the heavily fortified capital. Three more American soldiers die in a roadside bombing north of Baghdad. The attacks mark the deadliest day for American forces in Iraq since Sept. 10, when eight soldiers died in two road accidents and two Marines were killed fighting insurgents in Anbar province.
The United Nations reports insurgent and terrorist violence in Afghanistan increased sharply in 2007. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says there were more than 8,000 conflict-related deaths and an average of 566 incidents a month, compared with an average of 425 incidents a month in 2006, or a 25 percent increase. The violence in Afghanistan is at its highest level since U.S forces invaded in 2001.
President Bush says he will send Dick Cheney to press for peace in the Middle East. Bush said Monday in the Oval Office that Cheney would "reassure people that the United States is committed to a vision of peace in the Middle East." Cheney will visit Oman, Saudi Arabia, Israel, the West Bank and Turkey. Oil is also on his agenda, as the White House — coping with high energy prices that have socked American consumers — continues to push for greater oil production in the Mideast.
Subprime-related losses at global financial institutions hit $215 billion, with about 55 percent of that coming from the United States, according to the head of Japan's financial regulator.
The House Judiciary Committee files a lawsuit to enforce subpoenas against President Bush's chief of staff and his former counsel in a probe of suspected White House involvement in the 2006 firings of nine federal prosecutors. The committee's action marks the first time in U.S. history that either chamber of Congress has sued the Executive Branch to enforce a subpoena, according to a spokesman for the House Judiciary Committee. It says the year-long investigation "has uncovered substantial evidence" that the Bush administration and Justice Department "injected partisan considerations into the forced resignations or retention of U.S. attorneys." It cites "credible evidence" that U.S. attorneys who "failed to return desired indictments or failed to bring voter fraud prosecutions that were considered politically useful to the administration were forced to resign," as were those who "prosecuted officeholders allied with the administration."
Democratic Governor Eliot Spitzer, known for his high-profile prosecutions of corporate misdeeds, is found to be a client of a high-class prostitution ring after results of an FBI investigation are leaked. Questions arise almost immediately as to why he was under investigation by the Department of Justice's Public Integrity Division, which has opened 5.6 cases against Democrats for every case against a Republican.
March 11, 2008
The U.S. military commander for the Middle East resigns. Adm. William Fallon is the subject of an article in this week's Esquire, portraying him as a lone voice against taking military action against Iran. The article includes comments Fallon made to Al-Jazeera television that "a constant drumbeat of conflict" from Washington directed at Iran and Iraq "was not helpful and not useful. I expect that there will be no war, and that is what we ought to be working for. We ought to try to do our utmost to create different conditions." Defense Secretary Robert Gates says, "I don't think there were differences at all."
A roadside bomb hits a bus traveling in southern Iraq, killing at least 16 civilians, while gunmen open fire on another bus in the capital, leaving one person dead. The U.S. military later denies that any deaths occurred.
A Pentagon-sponsored review of more than 600,000 documents captured after the 2003 invasion of Iraq finds no evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist network, McClatchy Newspapers report.
Despite increased counterterrorism efforts by Damascus, as much as 90 percent of the foreign fighters in Iraq cross the border from Syria, according to a Pentagon report that says Iran's support for Shiite militants also is hurting efforts to improve Iraq security.
Bush calls for NATO allies to commit more troops and money to battle a resurgent Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan. Speaking before the National Association of Religious Broadcasters, Bush portrays the two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as part of a mission to defeat terrorism that will be passed on to his successors.
Former Attorney General John Ashcroft denies receiving "a backroom, sweetheart deal" after getting a multimillion-dollar contract on the recommendation of a former employee, New Jersey U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie. A House Judiciary subcommittee asked Ashcroft to explain how the Ashcroft Group, the lobbying and consulting firm he started after he left government, won the no-bid contract worth $28 million to $52 million.
Sen. John McCain says his inquiries into a $35 billion Air Force tanker contract were designed to ensure evenhanded bidding, and denies they were motivated by lobbyists who are close advisers to his presidential campaign. The Associated Press reports that some of his current advisers lobbied last year for the parent company of plane maker Airbus, which beat Boeing Co. for the lucrative aerial refueling contract. McCain prodded the Pentagon in 2006 to change proposed bidding procedures opposed by Airbus.
March 12, 2008
Three American soldiers are killed in a rocket attack in southern Iraq, bringing to 12 the number of soldiers who have been killed in Iraq over the past three days.
March 13, 2008
Both houses of congress endorse budget plans that bring the government into the black by letting Bush's tax cuts expire in 2010. Sen. John McCain votes for extending the full roster of tax cuts, which he opposed seven years ago as being tilted in favor of the wealthy.
Two-and-a-half years after Hurricane Katrina, tens of thousands of miserable homeowners are still waiting for their government rebuilding checks, and many complain they can’t even get their calls returned. But the company that holds the big contract to distribute the aid is doing quite well for itself. ICF International of Fairfax, Va., has posted strong profits, gone public, landed additional multimillion-dollar government contracts, and, it was learned this week, secured a potentially big raise recently from the state of Louisiana. In the waning days of Gov. Kathleen Blanco’s administration, state officials increased the management contract ceiling from $756 million to $914 million — this, after the Legislature wanted to fire ICF over its handling of the homeowner recovery program.
March 14, 2008
The recession is here, economists tell the Wall Street Journal. Congressman Barney Frank and Senator Chris Dodd agree.
March 16, 2008
JPMorgan Chase says it will acquire rival Bear Stearns for a bargain-basement $236.2 million — or $2 a share — a stunning collapse for one of the world’s largest and most storied investment banks. The last-minute buyout is aimed at averting a Bear Stearns bankruptcy and a spreading crisis of confidence in the global financial system. The Federal Reserve and the U.S. government swiftly approve the all-stock deal, showing the urgency of completing the deal before world markets opened. Early indications, though, point to continued fear about the stability of the U.S. market, as the dollar hits fresh record lows against the euro, gold breaks through $1,015 an ounce and Asian stocks sink.
March 17, 2008
America Was Conned: Who Will Pay?, writes the Guardian:
Ultimately, though, action will be taken because there will be political pressure for it. Indeed, it is somewhat surprising that there is not already rioting in the streets, given the gigantic fraud perpetrated by the financial elite at the expense of ordinary Americans.
The US has just had its weakest period of expansion since the 1950s. Consumption growth has been poor. Investment growth has been modest. Exports have been sluggish. But if you are at the top of the tree, the years since the last recession in 2001 has been a veritable golden age. Salaries for executives have rocketed and profits have soared, because the productivity gains from a growing economy have been disproportionately skewed towards capital. For ordinary Americans, though, it has been a different story. Real wages have been growing slowly; at just 1.6% a year on average over the latest upswing, well down on the experience of earlier decades.
March 18, 2008
"No one would argue that this war has not come at a high cost in lives and treasure, but those costs are necessary when we consider the cost of a strategic victory for our enemies in Iraq," President Bush says on the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war. "The surge has done more than turn the situation in Iraq around; it has opened the door to a major strategic victory in the broader war on terror." Still, large-scale attacks by terrorists and insurgent groups continue in Iraq. Bombings killed six Iraqis and wounded 51 in northeastern Baghdad and Mosul on the previous day, and the death toll from a Monday suicide bombing in Karbala rose to 50.
Five years into the war:
Dick Cheney again links the Iraq invasion to 9/11. "This long-term struggle became urgent on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001," Cheney tells soldiers in Iraq.
Major Sunni and Shiite political blocs boycott a national conference aimed at reconciling Iraq's rival communities, underscoring the deep divisions tearing at the country despite a decline in violence.
Marine Sgt. Ryan Weemer is charged with first-degree murder in death of a detainee in Fallujah, after he fails a polygraph exam while applying for a job with the Secret Service. Weems was asked about his involvement with a Marine squad that shot a group of unarmed captives in November 2004.
The Fed slashes a key interest rate by three-quarters of a point, wrapping up its most aggressive two months of rate cuts in a quarter-century.
The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation has seized voting machines for forensic analysis and has launched a criminal investigation into the Franklin County Board of Elections. The investigation was launched after Jennifer Brunner, Ohio's Secretary of State and chief election official, found that a candidate's name was marked as withdrawn on the electronic voting machine that she used during the recent primaries, an irregularity that was also reported by voters in other precincts.
The state attorney general is now working with a team of computer forensic consultants to determine if there was any tampering.Preliminary analysis conducted by specialists from SysTest Labs indicates that the internal audit capability of the Franklin County voting machines had been manually disabled by county election board programmers last year, making it almost impossible to tell if any nefarious changes have been made to the systems. SysTest also discovered that the election board had failed to adhere to routine machine testing standards and had tested only one machine in each precinct rather than all of the machines.
Ohio has seen one electronic voting disaster after another ever since counties in the state began adopting the technology. Two Cuyahoga election officials were convicted of rigging a recount in May 2004 because they literally admitted to doing precounts and displayed the evidence while being recorded on videotape. A different Cuyahoga county recount, for a November 2007 local election, was equally marred when Brunner turned the state's voter-verifiable paper audit trail law into a mockery by conducting the recount with paper ballots reprinted after the election from voting machine memory cards.
March 19, 2008
Federal regulators say Wednesday they will allow mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to reduce the capital they are required to keep on hand, a move that could pump $200 billion into mortgage markets.
Before dining with Oman's Sultan Qaboos bin Said, Cheney borrows his 60-foot royal yacht and goes fishing in the waters between Oman and Iran. Cheney tells ABC News that while December's National Intelligence Estimate said Iran abandoned its program to develop a nuclear warhead three years ago, "We don't know whether or not they've restarted."
March 20, 2008
The commander of the Army's 4th Infantry Division, Maj. Gen. Jeffery Hammond, says "mistakes" were made in sending injured Fort Carson soldiers to Iraq. Hammond, who now oversees all troops in Baghdad, admits problems with ordering soldiers to war who had been deemed medically unfit to fight, including some who were unable to get medical care they needed in the Middle East.
The State Department fires two contract workers for snooping in Barack Obama's passport file. A spokesman for Obama's campaign demands a complete investigation.
The George Bush Presidential Library at SMU will be personally censored by Karl Rove, with an attached "think tank" pushing a partisan, ideological agenda. Arab oil kingdoms, corporate sponsors and wealthy heiresses will pony up the $500 million price tag.
March 22, 2008
Three soldiers die when a roadside bomb hits their vehicle near Baghdad. Another US soldier dies after an attack the previous day. Six people are killed in a US air strike near the Iraqi town of Samarra; the US denies claims by a police source and a militia member that those killed at the checkpoint were members of one of the Awakening Councils, US-funded groups credited with helping to curb the level of violence.
March 23, 2008
The number of United States military personnel killed in Iraq since the US-led invasion passes the 4,000 mark when four soldiers in a patrol vehicle are killed by a bomb in southern Baghdad on Sunday.
March 24, 2008
Gasoline prices at the pump reach an all-time high after climbing 7 cents a gallon in two weeks.
March 25, 2008
With Iraq's top leaders directing the battle, Iraq's army and national police press a major operation Tuesday to wrest control of the southern port city of Basra from the Shiite Mahdi Army militia. Fighting between government forces and the militia quickly spreads through Iraq's south and into Baghdad. Medical officials estimate that 10 to 20 people were killed and that 100 are wounded in the fighting. But with most hospitals and the morgue barely functioning amid the fighting, it's impossible to get an accurate tally of the casualties. Militiamen carrying rocket-propelled grenades take over many of the streets, preventing residents from leaving their homes.
The Bush administration tells a seemingly receptive Supreme Court that the U.S. military should be allowed to turn over two American citizens to the Iraqi government for criminal proceedings. For now, defense lawyers have successfully stopped the transfers of Shawqi Omar, who allegedly assisted a terrorist network, and Mohammad Munaf, who allegedly set up the 2005 kidnapping of three Romanian journalists in Baghdad. Omar and Munaf proclaim their innocence and both are Sunni Muslims who say they will be tortured if they end up in Iraqi hands. Lawyers for the two say they are under the U.S. military's control, while the Bush administration says they are held by the "multinational force" in Iraq, of which the U.S. contingent is only a part. "American citizens, when they go abroad, they have to take what they get," says Deputy Attorney General Gregory Garre.
The Supreme Court rules President Bush does not have the "unilateral authority" to force state officials to comply with an international treaty. Chief Justice Roberts writes the chief executive's power, "as with the exercise of any governmental power, must stem either from an act of Congress or from the Constitution itself."
March 26, 2008
U.S. forces join Iraqi troops in Baghdad to fight Shi'ite militants, and police say that at least 20 people are killed in the Sadr City neighborhood, a stronghold for backers of Radical cleric Muqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army militia. The city's fortified Green Zone sustains a third round of intense mortar fire that seriously injures three U.S. government employees. A mortar round strikes near Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki's office. According to health ministry officials in Basra, at least 33 people have been killed and 150 wounded in the fighting.
Bush pardons two Colorado men convicted in 1994 of selling mounted migratory birds.
March 27, 2008
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki pledges "no retreat" in the fight against Shiite militias in the southern city of Basra, as thousands of protesters demand he resign over the crackdown and extremists fire rockets into the U.S.-protected Green Zone. Gunmen in Baghdad seize a government spokesman from his home in a Shiite neighborhood, killing three of his bodyguards and torching his house. A bomb strikes a major oil pipeline in Basra.
The federal government releases figures showing the economy grew at a rate of only 0.6% in the fourth quarter of 2007. Compared to the third quarter, fourth-quarter corporate profits fell 3.3 percent. Profits in the fourth quarter were adjusted to exclude unusually large asset write-downs and higher provisions for loan losses.
March 28, 2008
The Iraqi military push into the southern city of Basra is not going as well as American officials had hoped, several U.S. officials say. A closely held U.S. military intelligence analysis of the fighting in Basra shows that Iraqi security forces control less than a quarter of the city, and Basra's police units are deeply infiltrated by members of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army. "This is going to go on for a while," one U.S. military official says.
American and Iraqi troops unearth 14 badly decomposed bodies in a mass grave in Muqdadiyah, northeast of Baghdad. It is the second such find since Thursday, when 37 bodies were found.
Bush phones China's President Hu Jintao to confront him over the crackdown on Tibet, but must acknowledge an embarrassing blunder: the U.S. shipment of nuclear missile fuses to Taiwan, which went undiscovered for 18 months. Bush says he will attend the Beijing Olympics because they are an athletic event, not a political one.
March 30, 2008
"...Al Qaeda has been able for the past 18 months or so to establish a safe haven along the Afghan-Pakistan border area that they have not enjoyed before, and...they're bringing in operatives into the region for training," says CIA Director Michael Hayden, who warns that any future terrorist attack against Americans will certainly originate from that region.
In Iraq, Muqtada al-Sadr orders his Shiite militiamen off the streets Sunday but calls on the government to stop its raids against his followers. Seven people are killed when a mortar strikes a residential district in Baghdad's Karradah district. A U.S. airstrike kills 25 suspected militants after American ground forces come under heavy fire in predominantly Shiite eastern Baghdad. A suicide car bomber kills five U.S.-backed Sunni fighters and wounds eight other people near the oil hub of Beiji. Gunmen kill five policemen in Duluiyah. A U.S. soldier and a Marine are killed in separate roadside bombings in Baghdad and in Anbar province, raising to 4,010 the number of American service members killed since the war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
After 60 years, Aloha Airlines announces it is shutting down its passenger service. The airline blames rising fuel prices and new competition for driving it out of business.
March 31, 2008
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson proposes the most far-ranging overhaul of the financial regulatory system since the stock market crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression. The administration's plan draws criticism from Democrats that it does not go far enough to deal with abuses in mortgage lending and securities trading that were exposed by the current credit crisis. Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth William F. Galvin blasts Paulson's approach as "a disastrous backward step that would put the investor in jeopardy" because it would pre-empt state regulation of securities and insurance.
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson resigns amid a criminal investigation into favoritism in awarding contracts, leaving the nation without a top housing official in the midst of a vast mortage crisis that has shaken the global economy.
At least three rockets or mortar rounds are fired at Baghdad's fortified Green Zone today, U.S. officials said, despite an order by radical Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada Sadr to his followers to end weeklong clashes that have killed more than 350 people in the capital and across southern Iraq.
A blast strikes a NATO patrol in southern Afghanistan, killing two British soldiers.
April 1, 2008
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki claims that a week-old operation against Shiite militias has been a "success" despite a cease-fire that did not disarm the gunmen and left him politically battered and humbled within his Shiite power base. At least 1,247 Iraqis were killed in March, making it their deadliest month since last August.
61% of historians rate Bush the worst president ever, in an informal poll conducted by George Mason University's History News Network. Another sizeable percentage rank him at or near next-to-the-bottom of the list.
Hardball host Chris Matthews asks Sen. Claire McCaskill about Obama: "Let me ask you about how he -- Does he? Or does he only appeal to people who come from the African-American community and from the people who have college or advanced degrees?" Because, apparently, African-Americans aren't regular people.
April 2, 2008
For the first time, Fed chairman Ben Bernanke admits "a recession is possible" in the first half.
April 3, 2008
ATA Airlines ceases all flights as it files for bankruptcy. A company statement blames the loss of a key military contract.
Economist Howard Glekman critiques the subprime mortgage mess: "A $45 trillion market in immensely complex derivative securities, with no regulation, no capital requirements, no transparency, and a Federal Reserve that is so terrified of the consequences of this market blowing up that it seems prepared to bail out the losers at almost any cost." In the words of Fortune Senior Editor Allan Sloan, "Private profits, socialized losses."
Hanging in the Bush White House is the president's favorite painting, W.H.D. Koerner's "A Charge to Keep." In Bush's own words, it depicts "a horseman determinedly charging up what appears to be a steep and rough trail." Bush tells visitors it depicts a Methodist minister riding his circuit. In fact, it depicts a horse thief frantically fleeing a lynch mob.
April 4, 2008
Employers slashed 80,000 jobs in March, the most in five years and the third straight month of losses, the Labor Departmet reports. At the same time, the national unemployment rate rose from 4.8 percent to 5.1 percent, the clearest signal yet that the economy might already be shrinking.
In a dramatic reversal, Iraq's prime minister orders a nationwide freeze Friday on Iraqi raids against Shiite militants, bowing to demands by anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr only one day after promising to expand the crackdown to Baghdad. In Basra, military and police officials say about 900 Iraqi soldiers and police deserted or refused to fight the militias after the offensive was launched March 25.
A suicide bomber kills at least 15 people and wounds eight when he blows himself up during a policeman's funeral in Sadiyah, a town 60 miles north of Baghdad. A roadside bomb kills four policemen and wounds one in Hillah, a mostly Shiite city about 60 miles south of Baghdad.
April 6, 2008
Rocket attacks kill two U.S. soldiers in the heavily fortified Green Zone and another at a Baghdad military base. A fourth is killed by a roadside bomb in Diyala province. An Iraqi army spokesman says 11 people are killed when U.S. soldiers fire two missiles in support of an Iraqi army team that came under RPG attack. 42 soldiers in a bus bound for Mosul are kidnapped at gunpoint; Iraqi troops with U.S. helicopter support rescue them.
April 7, 2008
Three more U.S. troops are killed amid fierce street battles between Shiite Muslim militias and Iraqi and American soldiers. Thousands of Iraqis the Sadr City, where fighting has left at least 41 dead and 185 wounded since Sunday. A U.S. military spokesman rejects Iraqi allegations that U.S. airstrikes and gunfire have killed mostly civilians. "There might be some civilians that are getting caught, but for the most part, we're killing the bad guys," says Lt. Col. Steven Stover.
John McCain admits he lacks a command of economic issues. His chief economic adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, gained his expertise working in the current administration.
April 8, 2008
The top U.S. military commander in Iraq tells the Senate Armed Forces Commitee that there has been "significant but uneven progress" in security in the war-ravaged nation. Gen. David Petraeus warns, however, that recent violence in Iraq shows the progress there is "fragile and reversible." Sen. John McCain, meanwhile, says "Success is within reach." The Petraeus plan might still leave 140,000 troops in Iraq by the time Bush leaves office...more than invaded the country in 2003.
A U.S. soldier is killed by a roadside bomb in central Baghdad.
A Senior Al-Qaida operative responsible for the 2005 London bombings has died of hepatitis in Pakistan's tribal regions, U.S. officials say. Abu Abaida al-Masri's death undercuts Pakistan's rejection of U.S. claims that al Qaida's leadership has been directing terrorist plots from inside the borders region's safe havens of soaring mountains and rugged valleys.
April 9, 2008
Soldiers already serving in Iraq will be excluded from President Bush's plan to cut combat tours from 15 to 12 months. Two more U.S. soldiers in Iraq die of wounds from improvised explosive devices.
Democrats plan to push legislation this spring that would force the Iraqi government to spend its own surplus in oil revenues to rebuild the country, sparing U.S. dollars. Iraq has about $30 billion in surplus funds stored in U.S. banks, according to Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich.
The New York Times reports: In a major shift of policy, the Justice Department, once known for taking down giant corporations, including the accounting firm Arthur Andersen, has put off prosecuting more than 50 companies suspected of wrongdoing over the last three years. Instead, many companies, from boutique outfits to immense corporations like American Express, have avoided the cost and stigma of defending themselves against criminal charges with a so-called deferred prosecution agreement, which allows the government to collect fines and appoint an outside monitor to impose internal reforms without going through a trial. In many cases, the name of the monitor and the details of the agreement are kept secret. Deferred prosecution agreements, or D.P.A.’s, have become controversial because of a medical supply company’s agreement to pay up to $52 million to the consulting firm of John Ashcroft, the former attorney general, as an outside monitor to avoid criminal prosecution. That agreement has prompted Congressional inquiries and calls for stricter guidelines.
April 10, 2008
April 11, 2008
Frontier Airlines files for bankruptcy, plans to keep flying.
Gunmen kill Riyadh al-Nouri, a senior aide to cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, in the holy city of Najaf.
April 12, 2008
Army Spc. William E. Allmon, 25, of Ardmore, Okla., is killed by an explosive in Baghdad. Two Marines are killed by a roadside bomb in Anbar province.
April 13, 2008
April 14, 2008
April 15, 2008
A car bombing in central Baqubah, the capital of northeastern Diyala province, kills at least 47 people. A suicide bomber in Ramadi, in Anbar province, kills at least 10 people at a restaurant frequented by police. The bombings strike directly at U.S. claims that the Sunni insurgency is waning and being replaced by Shiite militia violence as a major threat.
In Karbala, south of Baghdad, suspected Shiite militia members kidnap six Iraqi soldiers, toruring and killing five. Three aides to Iraq's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, escape assassination in separate attacks Tuesday, although two of them are seriously wounded.
The House votes 238 to 179 to kill an Internal Revenue Service program that relies on private debt collectors to pursue back taxes. The IRS has lost more than $34 million as it pays contractors to do what the government's own tax experts say IRS agents could do more efficiently.
April 16, 2008
A U.S. airstrike kills four gunmen in Basra, military officials say. Clashes between Iraqi troops and Shiite militiamen kill two and injure 18 others, police say. A mortar shell slams into a house in eastern Baghdad, killing at least three civilians and wounding three others.
Roughly one in five U.S. troops that has survived duty in Iraq and Afghanistan suffers from major depression or post-traumatic stress, according to a Rand Corp. study which puts the toll at 300,000 or more. An equal number report possible brain injuries from explosions or other head wounds.
The FBI currently has 2,500 public corruption cases under investigation, an increase of 50 percent from five years ago, Director Robert Mueller says.
April 18, 2008
April 21, 2008
May 14, 2008
The U.S. drops charges against the alleged "20th hijacker." Mohammad al-Qatani's confessions and evidence against others are tainted because he underwent protracted torture at Guantanamo.
May 15, 2008
Speaking in Israel, President Bush compares his political opponents to Nazi appeasers.
May 16, 2007
Consumer confidence hits a 28-year low amid rising gas and food prices.
Iran angrily blames the U.S. when three of its diplomats are wounded in a Baghdad shooting.
May 17, 2008
An American sniper is removed from Iraq after using a copy of the Quran for target practice, a day after a U.S. commander held a formal ceremony apologizing to Sunni tribal leaders. The elaborate ceremony — in which one U.S. officer kissed a new copy of Islam's holy book before giving it to the tribal leaders — reflects the military's eagerness to stave off anger among Sunni Arabs it has been cultivating as allies.
May 19, 2008
A congressional report includes the first solid evidence of White House interference in the EPA's decision blocking California and other states from regulating greenhouse gas emissions. The report from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee shows Environmental Protection Agency head Stephen Johnson originally supported California's right to limit tailpipe emissions, but reversed himself after hearing from the White House.
May 20, 2008
May 21, 2008
Gasoline prices hit an all-time high of $3.807 a gallon, the 14th straight day of record prices.
May 25, 2008
Internal Veterans Administration memos show there are 1,000 suicide attempts a month at VA facilities. A CBS News study shows more than 6,250 American veterans committed suicide in 2006 alone.
A U.S. Army Special Forces soldier based at Fort Carson is killed by an improvised explosive device near Najaf, Iraq. Sgt. Frank Joseph Gasper, 25, is the fifth 10th Special Forces soldier to be killed in Iraq and the 238th Fort Carson soldier killed in Iraq.
May 27, 2008
June 2, 2008
June 3, 2008:
General Motors will close four pickup truck and SUV plants and slash 8,350 jobs.
June 4, 2008
The US military awards an $80 million contract to a Saudi financier who's wanted by the FBI for a multibillion bank fraud case. The French parliament has also linked Gaith Pharaon to money transfer networks used by Al-Qaeda. Pharaon was an investor in George W. Bush's first business venture, Arbusto Energy.
June 5, 2008
Defense Secretary Robert Gates ousts the Air Force's top officials, faulting them for failing to secure sensitive materials, including nuclear missile warhead fuses that were mistakenly shipped to Taiwan, and nuclear-tipped cruise missiles that were flown across the country in a B-52 with no one realizing they were aboard.
The first Guantamano detainees to go to trial, the confessed mastermind of the 9/11 hijackings and four alleged co-conspirators, face a military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay.
June 6, 2008
Unemployment jumps to 5.5 percent, the biggest monthly rise since 1986.
Home foreclosures and late payments soar to new highs.
June 8, 2008
The nationwide average price of regular gasoline reaches $4 a gallon for the first time.
June 9, 2008
U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich calls for President Bush's impeachment.
Iraqi lawmakers reject a U.S. "status of forces" proposal which they claim would give the U.S. 58 bases in Iraq, give the U.S. power to decide if a hostile act from another country is aggression against Iraq, give the U.S. control of Iraqi air space, and grant immunity from prosecution to U.S. troops and private contractors.
Convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff had 150 contacts with White House officials, including six meetings with President Bush, a House committee reports.
June 10, 2008
The World Bank says infighting within the Aghan government and failure to confront graft "has resulted in the widely held view that corruption is being ignored or tacitly acknowledged." The bank calls for the ouster of government officials connected to Afghanistan's drug trade, the world's unrivalled center of heroin production.
June 11, 2008
"We'll give diplomacy a chance to work," Bush says of Iran. "All options are on the table."
June 12, 2008
June 13, 2008
June 14, 2008
U.S. and allied combat deaths in Afghanistan pass the monthly toll in Iraq for the first time.
June 15, 2008
Afghan President Hamid Karzai threatens to send troops after Taliban leaders inside Pakistan in an angry warning to his eastern neighbor that he will no longer tolerate cross-border attacks.
June 16, 2008
Taliban fighters overrun villages on the outskirts of Kandahar.
An eight-month investigation shows abuse of detainees in Afghanistan was routine. No serious punishments have been issued, even in the case of two detainees who died after American guards beat them.
Investigation also shows that many Guantanamo detainees were wrongly imprisoned. Top Bush administration officials knew within months of opening the Guantanamo detention center that many of the prisoners there weren't "the worst of the worst." From the moment that Guantanamo opened in early 2002, former Secretary of the Army Thomas White says, it was obvious that at least a third of the population didn't belong there.
A Senate investigation concludes that top Pentagon officials assembled lists of harsh interrogation techniques for detainees in the summer of 2002, later passing the blame to officers far down the chain of command. Military lawyers questioned the legality of the practices as early as November 2002, a month before Rumsfeld approved them.
June 17, 2008
The Pentagon pursued abusive interrogation techniques once used by North Korea and Vietnam on American POWs despite stern warnings by several military lawyers that the methods were cruel and even illegal, a Senate investigation finds. The military hid detainees from Red Cross inspectors at Guantanamo to conceal evidence of the abuse, documents show.
A car bomb in Baghdad kills 51 and injures 75 in the capital's deadliest bombing in months.
June 18, 2008
Former detainees still traumatized.
Physicians for Human Rights say former detainees were tortured. The group examined 11 detainees from Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and Afghanistan, none of whom were ever charged.
For the second time the House overrides a Bush veto of a $290 billion farm bill. The House also agrees to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for another year.
Bush calls for an end to the ban on offshore oil drilling.
June 19, 2008
June 21, 2008
A female suicide bomber kills at least 15 in Baghdad.
June 22, 2008
A U.S. soldier is killed and five wounded by small-arms fire outside Baghdad.
June 23, 2008
GAO: No post-surge strategy for Iraq.
June 24, 2008
June 27, 2008
A U.S. commando raid kills a cousin of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki.
June 29, 2008
July 8, 2008
Iraqi officials press for a timeline on withdrawing U.S. troops.
July 10, 2008
Speaker Nancy Pelosi says the House may hold hearings on a resolution to impeach Bush.
Former White House adviser Karl Rove defies a congressional subpoena and refuses to testify about allegations of political pressure at the Justice Department. Committee Chair Linda Sanchez shoots down Rove's claims of "executive privilege."
June 13, 2008
Nine American soldiers are killed in an insurgent attack on a base in southern Afghanistan.
June 14, 2008
Bush lifts offshore drilling ban.
The government's terrorist watch list hits one million names.
It is now clear that no end is in sight to the turmoil, and the reason for that is that the Fed and the US treasury are no closer to solving the underlying problem than they were eight months ago. The crisis will only end when house prices stop falling and banks stop racking up huge losses on their loans. Doing that, however, will require the US government to intervene directly in the real estate market to end the wave of foreclosures. Ideologically, it is ill-equipped to take that step and, as a result, property prices will fall and the financial meltdown will go on and on.
* Baghdad has seven hours of power a day; before the war it had 16 to 24.
* Poor neighborhoods receive little or no water.
* Of the city's three major sewage treatment plants, two are not working; the other is at half capacity. Entire neighborhoods are ankle-deep in untreated filth.
* More than 2.4 million Iraqis are internally displaced; another 2.2 million have fled the country entirely.
* Even so, unemployment remains at 60-70% and 43% of Iraqis live in poverty.
* Of the more than 700 schools bombed in 2003, almost none have been rebuilt.
* In Baghdad, violence against women and sexual slavery are on the rise. In the south, killings of women to "preserve family honor" have increased sharply.
* Reporters are largely confined to the Green Zone and Baghdad hotels. "In all, just one in six stories about the war has been focused on Iraqis, Iraqi casualties or the internal political affairs of their country," reports the Project for Excellence in Journalism.