WMD in Iraq: Evidence and Implications

Joseph Cirincione, Jessica T. Mathews and George Perkovich
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
January 2004

 

Abstract

This report follows and builds on two earlier studies from the Carnegie Endowment, Iraq: A New Approach (August 2002) and Iraq: What Next? (January 2003). The first of these proposed a fundamentally new approach to the disarmament of Iraq: a comply-or-else, nonnegotiated regime of coercive inspections. The second analyzed what the UN inspectors had achieved as of January 2003 and argued for pursuing an enhanced inspection process over an invasion of Iraq, until and unless inspections were obstructed.

This report attempts to summarize and clarify the complex story of weapons of mass destruction and the Iraq war. It examines the unclassified record of prewar intelligence, administration statements of Iraq's capabilities to produce nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons and long-range missiles, and the evidence found to date in Iraq. It draws findings from this material and offers lessons and recommendations for the future.

The report was prepared from September to December of 2003. All the source documents used, and a great deal of additional information, can be found on the Carnegie Endowment's web site on a special page devoted to this subject: www.ceip.org/intel.

Full Text (PDF, 111 pages, 1.28 MB)

 

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