For months before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq the American, British and Australian governments were hard at work manipulating intelligence to create several illusions. Saddam Hussein was falsely portrayed as one of the architects of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon in September 2001; he was said to have developed an arsenal of poison gas and chemical weapons to use against neighbouring countries and for terrorists to use elsewhere; and it was claimed he had resumed his programme to develop nuclear weapons.