Over a decade after the end of the 1990-91 Gulf War, the challenge to international security posed by Iraqi efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction (WMD) remains unresolved. Following the war, the UN Security Council imposed an extraordinary set of constraints and obligations on Iraq to ensure that it does not possess WMD and long-range missiles for their delivery. Now, however, these constraints and obligations are in a state of disarray.

With no inspections since December 1998, the status of Iraqi WMD programs grows increasingly uncertain. Analysts have been particularly concerned about the nuclear program; concerns of the threat posed by an Iraqi biological weapons program are also growing.

Preventing Iraq from possessing WMD must remain a preeminent goal of the UN Security Council. The fear of Iraqi nuclear weapons is almost certainly leading Iran, for example, to accelerate its own nuclear weapons efforts.