FACTBOX - U.S. marched to Iraq with inaccurate intelligence

(Reuters) - The Bush administration marched to war with Iraq armed with inaccurate intelligence, mistaken assumptions and extravagant hopes that have cost the United States dearly in blood and treasure.

Following is a series of quotations, statements and subsequent outcomes of some of the main justifications that led the United States to invade Iraq on March 19, 2003:

SADDAM HUSSEIN'S WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION

* President George W. Bush, two days before the war's start: "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."

* Then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice in September 2002: "We don't want 'the smoking gun' to be a mushroom cloud."

* Vice President Dick Cheney on August 26, 2002: "There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.

"Many of us are convinced that Saddam will acquire nuclear weapons fairly soon."

* An October 2002 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate -- representing the consensus views of the American intelligence community -- concludes that Iraq is pursuing a nuclear device, has an active biological weapons program and has resumed making deadly mustard, sarin and VX chemical agents.

* In an exhaustive 2005 review, the blue-ribbon Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction finds that the NIE's conclusions were flat wrong.