Iraq's possession of WMD (weapons of mass destruction) is a historical fact, not a point for debate. Despite the valiant efforts of the United Nations inspectors, who destroyed far more of Iraq's WMD programmes than Saddam Hussein ever expected, Iraq was able to hang o­n to most of the knowledge and equipment it needed.

As o­ne Iraqi defector has pointed out "it is impossible to completely destroy the know-how in our scientists". Facilities for the production of chemical weapons were dismantled before the UN inspectors arrived. They were taken away to secret places and reassembled again. All documents have been hidden in such a way that strangers will never find them.

Even while the UN inspectors were in Iraq, Baghdad kept working o­n its prohibited weapons systems. For example, Iraq built a facility for the production of ammonium perchlorate, a key ingredient in solid missile propellant, indicating that work continued o­n advanced solid fuel multistage missiles.

In December 1995, Jordan intercepted 115 missile gyroscopes and material for chemical weapons being smuggled into Iraq. Iraq also had several major dual-use chemical facilities, most notably at Fallujah. Since most chemical warfare (CW) agents deteriorate over time but can be produced reasonably quickly, many of the CW facilities also function as legitimate civilian industries. That is why general Amir al Saadi (former head of Iraq's CW programme and Saddam's scientific advisor) can claim that Iraq has no WMD. He can truthfully say that these factories had been producing innocuous chemicals.

With regard to Iraq's biological warfare (BW) programme, the biggest problem is that it does not require large facilities to produce these agents. This means that they leave very little trace and virtually no signature that the UN inspectors can detect. The Iraqis had all the equipment and agent samples they required. Some of the biological agents such as wheat smut, are tools of economic warfare that were used to destroy crops. As Charles Duelfer (former deputy chairperson of United Nations Special Commission) has stressed "the types of research Iraq is known to have conducted points to their interest in BW...as a strategic weapon, as an economic weapon, a terror weapon, and possibly a genocide weapon".

In 1990, Iraq had built a workable nuclear device. All it lacked was the fissile material. Iraq has natural uranium deposits so it does not need to import uranium. It had the technology and know-how to build a system capable of enriching that uranium to weapons grade. Moreover, Iraq had been actively looking to buy enriched uranium from the former USSR, North Korea, China, Pakistan or anyone else willing to sell it. As Duelfer has concluded "while precise estimates of the Iraqi nuclear programme are impossible, what is certain is that Baghdad has the desire, the talent, and the resources to build a nuclear weapon given time to do so".

Why was Saddam willing to give up US$130 to US$180 billion worth of oil revenue, and risk invasion to keep his WMD programmes? The reason is that Iraq's WMD were of critical importance in achieving Saddam's foreign policy ambitions, of making Iraq a powerful state and the leader of the Arab world.

Joining the 'nuclear club' has long been the mark of great power status, and Saddam was fully cognizant of this. Saddam's speeches and interviews have indicated that he believed he could use WMD to extract concessions from other states that lacked the same capability. In 1990, Iraq had begun to try to use its WMD to extend a deterrence umbrella over other Arab states. The motives for these actions are obvious. To benefit from Iraqi extended deterrence, other Arab states would have had to accept Iraqi leadership.