TASK FORCE ON TERRORISM & UNCONVENTIONAL WARFARE
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515
THE IRAQI WMD CHALLENGE -- Myths and Reality
February 10, 1998

Nobody likes the idea of Saddam Hussein having weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and missiles capable of delivering their lethal warheads. The ramifications of their potential use in anger -- the numbers of fatalities and injured they might inflict -- are horrendous. However, as the US is getting ready to bomb in Iraq in order to address the challenge of that country's remaining WMD arsenal, one should examine dispassionately what might be conceivably accomplished, and what would be the ramifications of the massive bombing campaign the Clinton Administration is advocating.

Despite Baghdad's protestations, Iraq does have a small but very lethal operational arsenal of WMD and platforms capable of delivering them throughout the Middle East and even beyond. Although Iraq has been subjected to an unprecedented regimen of UN inspection and destruction of strategic military programs since the end of the Gulf War in the Spring of 1991, the international community has proven incapable of learning the entire scope of the Iraqi programs for fielding weapons of mass destruction, let alone eliminate these programs as mandated by the Security Council.....