BUILD-UP TO SECOND WAR

George Bush and Colin Powell
called for Iraqi "regime change"

In November 2000, US President George W Bush came to power, signalling a new get-tough policy on Iraq and vowing to "re-invigorate" sanctions.
In early 2002, the administration started describing its aims publicly as "regime change" in Iraq.

A day after the first anniversary of the 11 September attacks, Mr Bush told the United Nations General Assembly that Iraq is a "grave and gathering danger" and that the US "will not allow any terrorist or tyrant to threaten civilisation with weapons of mass murder".

After weeks of wrangling, the UN Security Council passed resolution 1441 in November 2002 designed to force Iraq to give up all weapons of mass destruction and threatening "serious consequences" if it did not comply. Iraq accepted the terms of the resolution and weapons inspections resumed.

In early February 2003, US Secretary of State Colin Powell told the UN that inspections were not achieving the disarmament of Iraq. The US and UK pressed for a new resolution authorising military action against Iraq. France and Russian opposed this resolution, and threatened to veto it.

The resolution never came to the vote. Washington and London argued that previous Security Council resolutions on Iraq gave authority for the use of military force to disarm Iraq.

On 20 March 2003 the US and UK led a "coalition of the willing" on an invasion of Iraq.

Hundreds of thousands of coalition
soldiers were sent to the Gulf to
change the regime in Iraq