Wednesday, 26 March

2100: Iraqis launch rocket attack against US marines south of Nasiriya, injuring 20.

2031: The UN Security Council opens an emergency session on Iraq with Secretary General Kofi Annan saying many people around the world were questioning the legitimacy of the action being taken against Iraq.

2025: A column of as many as 1,000 vehicles of the Iraqi Republican Guard is reportedly moving very close to the American units south of Baghdad.

2012: Three huge explosions rock the centre of Baghdad as the Iraqi capital comes under renewed aerial bombardment.

DAY 6 OF WAR

Tuesday, 25 March

2100: Iraqi state television broadcasts halt for 15 minutes, before returning on air with weaker signal, indicating back-up systems are being used, BBC correspondent in Baghdad says.

2100: UK defence officials reveal two UK soldiers killed in friendly fire incident near Iraqi town of Basra on Monday night. Two more are said to be seriously injured.

2020: Renewed bombardment of Baghdad reported by correspondents in the Iraqi capital.

Friday, 21 March (GMT Time)

2100: Iraqi TV said al-Samoud II missiles and long-range Fatah missiles have been fired at Kuwait.

2020: Air raid sirens sound in Kuwait for the third time in the day.

1930: Turkey gives permission for US forces to use its air space, Defence Minister Vecdi Gonul says.

1930: After a short lull, a second wave of bombs begin to hit Baghdad.

1910: Presidential palace in Baghdad destroyed, with black smoke pouring out of windows.

1815: US-led forces now 160 kilometers (100 miles) inside Iraq, says General Richard Myers, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff.

Sunday, 30 March

2030: Three people die and one is injured when a US marine helicopter crashes in southern Iraq, Pentagon officials say.

1931: A UK marine was killed and others injured when their patrol was ambushed in southern Iraq, the UK defence ministry says.

1845: Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz says the war is "going well" from his country's point of view.

1815: Fresh wave of explosions reported in central Baghdad.

1700: The United Nations says a convoy of trucks carrying drinking water for the people of southern Iraq has crossed into the country from neighbouring Kuwait.

A controversial yet thought provoking article on the lessons to be learnt for Muslims in relation to the Iraq War

By Jahangir Mohammed, Director of the centre for Muslim Affairs in the UK

Now that the Crusade against Islam has been extended to the Muslims of Iraq, Muslims need to undergo a sobering reality check. Unfolding events since 911, seem to be revealing a number of messages, almost as an answer from Allah (swt) to confused Muslims.

Robin Cook has resigned from Tony Blair's cabinet as the build-up to war with Iraq gathers pace.

The decision by the Leader of the House of Commons, one of the highest profile figures in the Labour Party, came as the cabinet held an emergency meeting in Downing Street.

The UK, US and Spain have effectively abandoned their efforts to find a diplomatic solution to the stand-off.

They are not putting their draft resolution to a vote in the United Nations Security Council - citing French intransigence.

Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott said: "There are only two options left - either Saddam goes into exile or he is disarmed by force."

The Legality Of War

This will be a war without support at home or agreement abroad

Robin Cook, 18 Tuesday March 2003, The Guardian

I have resigned from the cabinet because I believe that a fundamental principle of Labour's foreign policy has been violated. If we believe in an international community based on binding rules and institutions, we cannot simply set them aside when they produce results that are inconvenient to us.

I cannot defend a war with neither international agreement nor domestic support. I applaud the determined efforts of the prime minister and foreign secretary to secure a second resolution. Now that those attempts have ended in failure, we cannot pretend that getting a second resolution was of no importance.

By Katherine Baldwin

LONDON (Reuters) - Cabinet Minister Clare Short has threatened to resign if the country goes to war with Iraq without the backing of a second U.N. resolution.

The announcement by the International Development Secretary ratcheted up the pressure on Prime Minister Tony Blair, facing rising disaffection from the public and his own party over his support for a U.S.-led attack to remove Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

"I will not uphold a breach of international law or this undermining of the U.N. and I will resign from the government," Short told the BBC.

There is a “moral case” for taking out Saddam. But what about everybody else?

Terry Jones

Mr. Bush is right, Saddam Hussein is a ‘nasty’ man, and nobody I know has the least objection to Mr. Bush killing him. It’s just the way he proposes doing it that worries me. Dropping 3000 bombs in 48 hours on Baghdad is going to kill a lot of other people who, as far as I am aware, are not nasty at all.

That’s the bit of the ‘moral’ argument I don’t follow. It’s a bit like the police saying they know a murderer comes from the south of England so they are going to execute everybody in Epsom.

The 'threats' that Hussein posed to the United States are nowhere to be seen.

Now that the war has been won, is it permissible to suggest that our emperor has no clothes? I'm not referring to his abysmal stewardship of the economy but rather the fig-leaf war he donned to cover up his glaring domestic failures.

President Bush went to war with Hitler's Germany and found another Afghanistan instead. After comparing the threat of Hussein to that of the Führer, it was odd to find upon our arrival a tottering regime squatting on a demoralized Third World populace.

Now the pressure is on for Bush to find or plant those alleged weapons of mass destruction fast or stand exposed as a bullying fraud.