The Iraq war: the road to conflict, January-March 2003

January 7 2003: An Iraqi soldier manning an anti-aircraft gun salutes volunteers in a military parade in Baquba City, 25 miles north-east of Baghdad. Thousands of Iraqi volunteers took part in the parade to declare their readiness to defend Iraq against any US invasion
Photograph: Suhaib Salem/Reuters

9 January 2003: UN weapons inspectors pass a portrait of the Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein, upon arrival at a veterinary research centre in Baghdad. The UN security council was due to receive a 'status report' on arms inspections in Iraq. Baghdad announced it would complain about the some of the inspectors 'unjustified' actions when inspection chiefs visit later this month
Photograph: Ahmad Al-rubaye/EPA

12 January 2003: Locals from the Ashdown Forest area in east Sussex stage a naked anti-war protest despite the freezing weather
Photograph: Kirsty Wigglesworth/PA

17 January 2003: US Marines at Camp Pendleton board the amphibious assault ship USS Boxer as a flotilla of seven US warships set sail from San Diego, with around 10,000 Navy personnel and soldiers from the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. The deployment coincides with a massive military US build-up as they prepare for a possible war with Iraq
Photograph: Mike Blake/Reuters

24 January 2003: A woman at a garment workshop in Jakarta, Indonesia, checks the silk screen picture of Saddam Hussein, ready for printing of slogans such as Ready for War, and Saddam Hussein, we support of you. Muslim protesters said they will rise to action if the US attacks Iraq
Photograph: Choo Youn-Kong/AFP

29 January 2003: Tony Blair leaves No 10 Downing St clutching a folder of documentsahead of prime minister's Question Time, in the Commons
Photograph: Max Nash/AP

31 January, 2003: George Bush and Tony Blair arrive for a White House press conference. Facing opposition on Capitol Hill and across world capitals, Bush and Blair met to discuss the situation in Iraq
Photograph: Larry Downing/Reuters

31 January, 2003: George Bush shakes hands with Tony Blair at the White House. During a press conference, Bush said the US would fight efforts to delay a decision on Iraq, insisting on bringing the disarmament standoff to a head 'in a matter of weeks'
Photograph: Reuters

5 February 2003: Plastic masks of Saddam Hussein at an assembly line in a suburb of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Spanish-born craftsman Armando Valle rushed to fill orders for 12,000 of the popular masks of Saddam and George Bush ahead of the Rio carnival
Photograph: Sergio Moraes/Reuters

5 February 2003: The US secretary of state, Colin Powell, holds up a phial to the UN security council in New York that he said was the size that could be used to hold anthrax. Powell urged the council to say 'enough' to Iraq's '12 years of defiance' of international attempts to destroy its chemical and biological weapons
Photograph: Timothy A. Clary/AFP

6 February 2003: Chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix (left) speaks with Tony Blair outside Downing St in London. Blair and the British foreign secretary, Jack Straw, met Blix and the head of the International Atomic Energy Authority, Mohamed ElBaradei, following US Secretary of State Colin Powell's address to the security council about Iraq
Photograph: Ian Waldie/Getty Images North America

6 February 2003 Jeremy Paxman (left) with Tony Blair during BBC2's Newsnight special on Iraq. Blair tonight acknowledged the public could take a lot of persuading to support a war against Iraq and accepted that unless there was a new security council resolution authorising military action, there would be strong public opposition. Blair, who was facing a studio audience of people opposed to war, said Iraq did not present an immediate threat to Britain but said the UK could not afford to allow Saddam Hussein develop weapons of mass destruction
Photograph: Jeff Overs/BBC

15 February 2003: Protesters in Blair and Bush masks take part in an anti-Iraq war demonstration in central London. Organisers claimed that 1.5 million people took part
Photograph: Gary Calton/Guardian

15 February 2003: Organisers claimed that 1.5 million people took part in the anti-Iraq war rally in central London.
Photograph: Gary Calton/Guardian

24 February 2003: Tony Blair sweats as he delivers a speech at the government's annual Quality of Life report in London. The UK government reiterated that it expected a fresh resolution on disarming Iraq to be put to the UN this week with a vote expected by mid-March
Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Reuters

4 March 2003: A US B-52 bomber crosses the perimeter fence at Fairford RAF base in Gloucestershire. The UK defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, told parliament he had agreed to a US request for 14 B-52 bombers to fly to the base as Washington continues its military build-up
Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Reuters

10 March 2003: The international development secretary, Clare Short (right) leaves her office in London. Tony Blair scrambled to rally world support for his tough stand on Iraq as Short threatened to quit over Iraq, shattering British government unity
Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Reuters

14 March 2003: Tanks and troops of Britain's 7th Armoured Brigade, also known as the Desert Rats, gather in the Kuwaiti desert for an address by Lieutenant General Jeff Conway, head of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. It's only 300 miles from the Iraq-Kuwait border to Baghdad but how fast allied forces reach the Iraqi capital depends on the 'speed bumps'
Photograph: Dan Chung/The Guardian

15 March 2003: Members of 23 Engineer regiment air assault unit practise dispatch riding by the Kuwait-Iraq border
Photograph: Brian Roberts/News of the World/PA

16 March 2003: Tony Blair, the Spanish prime minister, José Mariá Aznar, US President George Bush and the Portuguese premier José Manual Durao Barroso at a press conference in the Azores
Photograph: PA

16 March 2003: A peace protester burns his American passport during an anti-war protest at Fairford airbase in Gloucestershire, UK
Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Reuters

16 March 2003: Tony Blair watched by his communications and strategy chief, Alastair Campbell, as he speaks to the UK foreign secretary, Jack Straw, during his flight back from the Azores summit
Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/Reuters

18 March 2003: Workers begin to clean up a No War slogan painted on the Sydney Opera House. Two anti-war protestors were arrested after they scaled the building
Photograph: Greg Wood/AFP

19 March 2003: President George Bush addresses the US nation from the White House's Oval Office, announcing he had launched the war against Iraq, promising a 'broad and concerted campaign' to topple Saddam Hussein
Photograph: Luke Frazza/AFP

20 March 2003: A missile hits the planning ministry in Baghdad as the Iraqi capital came under heavy US-led bombardment
Photograph: Ramzi Haidar/AFP

21 March 21, 2003: Tony Blair and the British foreign secretary, Jack Straw, face the press a European Union heads of state summit in Brussels
Photograph: Reuters

21 March 2003: US Marines crossing the Demilitarized Zone, which separates Kuwait and Iraq. Allied forces combat units rumbled across the desert into Iraq from the south, and bombed limited targets in Baghdad
Photograph: Laurent Rebours/AP