BEIJING, March 18 (Xinhuanet) -- The US-led coalition has justified the Iraq war by claiming that the Saddam Hussein regime threatened the world peace by harboring stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction.

    However, one year later, no hard evidence supporting the pretext has been found yet.

    Following are some remarks by US and British leadership on the Iraq war, which was launched on March 20, 2003 to topple the Saddam Hussein regime.

    -- US President George W. Bush

    BEFORE THE WAR:

    On Jan 3, 2003, US President George W. Bush told US soldiers at Texas' Fort Hood that "Should Saddam Hussein seal his fate by refusing to disarm, by ignoring the opinion of the world, you'll be fighting not to conquer anybody, but to liberate people."

    On March 19, 2003, Bush said "the security of the world requires disarming Saddam Hussein now." And Iraq has "aided, trained and harbored terrorists, including operatives of al-Qaida."

    DURING THE WAR:

    On March 20, 2003, Bush briefly addressed his nation in Washington: "My fellow citizens, at this hour American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations todisarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from gravedanger."

    "The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder."

    AFTER THE WAR:

    On Feb. 17, 2004, Bush said at Fort Polk in central Louisiana that "our administration looked at the intelligence and we saw a danger, members of Congress looked at the same intelligence, and they saw a danger. The United Nations Security Council looked at the intelligence and it saw a danger. We reached a reasonable conclusion that Saddam Hussein was a danger."

    "Saddam Hussein showed defiance and we had a choice of our own:Either take the word of a madman, or take action to defend Americaand the world. Faced with that choice, I will defend America everytime," he said.

    -- US Secretary of State Colin Powell

    BEFORE THE WAR:

    On Feb. 5, 2003, Powell told the UN Security Council that "Saddam Hussein's inhumanity knows no limits," and there was a "sinister nexus" between Iraq and the al-Qaida terrorist group.

    Powell said there was a "decade of proof" that Iraq was trying to develop nuclear weapons, saying "Saddam Hussein is determined to get his hands on a nuclear bomb."

    "Saddam Hussein has investigated dozens of biological agents causing diseases such as gas gangrene, plague, typhus, tetanus, cholera, camelpox and hemorrhagic fever, and he also has the wherewithal to develop smallpox."

    DURING THE WAR:

    On April 13, 2003, Powell said in an interview with the BritishBroadcasting Corp. that he was confident coalition forces would find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq once the fighting was over.

    Powell said the campaign could be called a success once Iraq embraced democracy. "This operation will come to a successful end when there is a new government in Iraq that has been decided upon by the people of Iraq and when the people of Iraq have forsworn any support of terrorism and there are no more weapons of mass destruction."

    AFTER THE WAR:

    On Feb. 3, 2004, Powell defended the Iraq war by saying that President George W. Bush had made the "right decision" despite thefact that no weapons of mass destruction have yet been found there.

    "There should be no doubt in the mind of the American people oranyone else in the world that we have done the right thing, and history will certainly be the test of that," Powell said.

    Even if Saddam didn't have stockpiles of banned munitions at the time of the war, intelligence said that "you have a regime that has the intent, you have a regime with the capability, we believe they have stocks on hand. Everything's been proven except we don't see the stocks on hand. We don't know how that was missed,and if it was missed. We're still looking."

    "What I know now is that we were dealing with a despotic regimethat had the intention to develop weapons of mass destruction, hadweapons of mass destruction, used weapons of mass destruction and had never lost the intention to have such weapons."

    -- US Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld

    BEFORE THE WAR:

    On March 4, 2003, Rumsfeld said in an interview on the British Broadcasting Corp. television that "there is no doubt in my mind but that they currently have chemical and biological weapons."

    DURING THE WAR:

    On April 30, 2003, when visiting Baghdad, Rumsfeld said "we want the Iraqi people to live in freedom so they can build a future where the Iraqi leaders answer to the Iraqi people rather than killing them."

    AFTER THE WAR:

    On March 14, 2004, Rumsfeld defended the US-led invasion on itsanniversary, saying the war against Iraq was the right action to take because Saddam Hussein had been more dangerous and posed an "urgent" threat.

    "I do believe it was the right thing to do and I'm glad it's done," Rumsfeld said on CBS' "Face the Nation."

¡¡¡¡-- US Vice President Dick Cheney

    BEFORE THE WAR:

    On Aug. 29, 2002, Cheney said in San Antonio to a group of US veterans that "there is no doubt that he is amassing them (weaponsof mass destruction) to use them against our friends, against our allies and against us."

    On Jan. 31, 2003, Cheney spoke in Washington to fellow Republicans that "Saddam Hussein's pursuit of weapons of mass destruction poses a grave danger, not only to his neighbors, but also to the United States."

    "His regime aids and protects terrorists, including members of al-Qaida. He could decide secretly to provide weapons of mass destruction to terrorists for their use against us."

    Washington "will not permit a brutal dictator with ties to terror and a record of reckless aggression, to dominate the MiddleEast and threaten the United States of America."

    AFTER THE WAR:

    On March 9, 2004, Cheney criticized Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry in Des Moines, Iowa, arguing that "the United States will never seek a permission slip to defend the security ofour country."

    -- British Prime Minister Tony Blair

    BEFORE THE WAR:

    On Jan. 1, 2003, Blair said in his New Year message that "uniquely, (Saddam Hussein) he has used them before. He has to be stopped before he does so again."

    "And to rogue states developing and trading in WMD, and terrorist groups who would acquire and use them if they could, themessage must go out -- they cannot and will not be allowed to."

    Iraq would have to be disarmed by force if it continued to defyinternational law and failed to destroy weapons of mass destruction properly.

    Failure to disarm Saddam "would make the world a very dangerousplace in the future."

    DURING THE WAR:

    On March 20, 2003, Blair said that the overthrow of Saddam was now a major war aim, a slight departure from his previous pretext of the war that his aim was to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction and not necessarily to remove Saddam.

    "Now we are faced with the prospect of either leaving him in place without disarming him, or making sure that we remove him from power," Blair told the House of Commons.

    AFTER THE WAR:

    On March 6, 2004, Blair defended his pre-emptive military actions on Iraq by saying that the risk of illegal weapons fallinginto the hands of rogue states could not be ignored, and he would take pre-emptive action again in the future, if necessary.

    "We are in mortal danger of mistaking the nature of the new world in which we live."

    "Containment will not work in the face of the global threat that confronts us. Emphatically I am not saying that every situation leads to military action. But we surely have a duty and a right to prevent the threat materializing."

    -- British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw

    BEFORE THE WAR:

    On Jan. 7, 2003, Straw repeated his government's position that "we have always made it clear, explicitly, our preference for a second resolution if we think that military action was necessary and justified," given Iraq refused to disarm its weapons of mass destruction.

    DURING THE WAR:

    On April 30, 2003, Straw said in a speech to business leaders in London that "assembling an accurate picture of Saddam's programs will take time."

    "We know that for six months prior to the return of UN inspectors, (toppled Iraqi leader) Saddam (Hussein) put in place asystematic campaign of concealment. So it is hardly surprising that concrete evidence of WMD has yet to come to light."

    "Until we are able to question the scientists and experts who worked on these programs -- and the UN has a list of 5,000 names --progress will inevitably be slow," Straw said.

    "But as these individuals come forward and begin to speak freely, I am confident that answers to some of the numerous unresolved questions about Saddam's weapons programs -- which havebeen catalogued in such damning detail by UNMOVIC (the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission) -- will emerge."

    AFTER THE WAR:

    On June 1, 2003, Straw dismissed accusations that the US and British governments sexed up intelligence on the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to justify the war.

    "The intelligence certainly wasn't wrong. The evidence is there,it is published," Straw told BBC television: "They had those weapons systems and they had been building them up."

    There was "nothing spectacular" about the assertion last September that Saddam Hussein had the capability to deploy bio-chemical weapons within 45 minutes. Enditem