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.

"The intelligence community's Iraq assessments were, in short, riddled with errors," the commission concludes.

"The harm done to American credibility by our all too public intelligence failings in Iraq will take years to undo."

CONNECTIONS TO AL QAEDA

* Top Bush administration officials spoke of ties between Saddam and al Qaeda and implied Iraqi involvement in the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington. Cheney said on September 14, 2003: "He (Saddam) had long established ties with al Qaeda."

* But independent bodies, including the September 11 commission, found there had been no collaborative links between Iraq and the militant network before the 2003 invasion.

* In February 2007, a report by the Pentagon inspector general said former U.S. defense policy chief Douglas Feith presented the White House with claims of a "mature symbiotic relationship" between Iraq and al Qaeda while ignoring contradictory views from the intelligence community.

THE COST OF WAR