page_title: Iraq and weapons of mass destruction
section_title: 2003 Iraq War
hierarchical_section_title: Iraq and weapons of mass destruction / 2003 Iraq War
caption_attribution_description: English: At the UN, Colin Powell holds a model vial of anthrax, while arguing that Iraq is likely to possess WMDs.
context_page_description: Iraq actively researched and later employed weapons of mass destruction from 1962 to 1991, when it destroyed its chemical weapons stockpile and halted its biological and nuclear weapon programs as required by the United Nations Security Council. The fifth President of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, was internationally condemned for his use of chemical weapons during the 1980s campaign against Iranian and Kurdish civilians during and after the Iran–Iraq War. In the 1980s, Saddam pursued an extensive biological weapons program and a nuclear weapons program, though no nuclear bomb was built. After the Persian Gulf War, the United Nations located and destroyed large quantities of Iraqi chemical weapons and related equipment and materials; Iraq ceased its chemical, biological and nuclear programs.
  In the early 2000s, the administrations of George W. Bush and Tony Blair asserted that Saddam Hussein's weapons programs were still actively building weapons, and that large stockpiles of WMDs were hidden in Iraq.
context_section_description: Possession of WMDs was cited by the United States as the primary motivation instigating the Iraq War.
caption: February 5, 2003 – United States Secretary of State Colin Powell holding a model vial of anthrax while giving the presentation to the United Nations Security Council.
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