This article should be merged with Iraqi production and use of weapons of mass destruction
The United States and the United Kingdom both say that Iraq currently has weapons of mass destruction or is developing, but that it shouldn't. Iraq says it no longer has any, but UN weapons inspector Hans Blix said Baghdad in late January 2003 that Iraq had "not genuinely accepted U.N. resolutions demanding that it disarm." [1]
It is known that at the time of Desert Storm and in the decades preceding, that Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program which it successfully kept from being monitored by the IAEA. In the aftermath of Desert Storm, Iraq was forced to accept UN weapons inspectors and forbidden from developing weapons of mass destruction. Between 1991 and 1995, UN inspectors uncovered a massive program to develop nuclear weapons and large amount of equipment was confiscated and removed. Many experts believe that as of 1991, Iraq was within one to three years of developing nuclear weapons. Iraq's nuclear weapons program suffered a serious setback in 19?? when the reactor used to generate source material for its bomb was bombed by Israel.
The current controversy centers on whether Iraq is currently developing nuclear weapons in violation of UN resolutions. Between 1997 and 2002, Iraq prevented UN weapons inspectors from entering the country and the controversy is whether or not Iraq used their absence to develop weapons of mass destruction.
The United States may have inside knowledge when claiming that Iraq still has weapons of mass destruction. One of the suppliers of biological weapons components to Iraq (perhaps unwittingly) was the United States itself, during the Iran/Iraq war. From the Associated Press [2]:
09/30/2002 “Report: U.S. supplied the kinds of germs Iraq later used for biological weapons WASHINGTON (AP) — Iraq's bioweapons program that President Bush wants to eradicate got its start with help from Uncle Sam two decades ago, according to government records getting new scrutiny in light of the discussion of war against Iraq.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sent samples directly to several Iraqi sites that U.N. weapons inspectors determined were part of Saddam Hussein's biological weapons program, CDC and congressional records from the early 1990s show. Iraq had ordered the samples, claiming it needed them for legitimate medical research. (Related story: A look at U.S. shipments of pathogens to Iraq)
The CDC and a biological sample company, the American Type Culture Collection, sent strains of all the germs Iraq used to make weapons, including anthrax, the bacteria that make botulinum toxin and the germs that cause gas gangrene, the records show. Iraq also got samples of other deadly pathogens, including the West Nile virus.”
See: