The Malaysian government today

demanded proof that the collapsed regime of President Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction - the reason the United States gave for going to war.

The Muslim-majority Southeast Asian nation reiterated its belief that the US-led invasion was illegal in terms of international law and the UN charter and called for the UN to take a leading role in post-war Iraq.

And the statement by Acting Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, while couched in diplomatic language, puts Washington o­n the spot to prove its claims that Iraq had chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programmes.