The list of countries that are suspected of developing biological weapons includes Iraq, Iran, China, Egypt, Libya, North Korea, Syria, and Taiwan. The difficulties of verifying such suspicions can be seen in the case of Iraq. Unlike most nations, Iraq has been subject to international weapons inspections under the auspices of the United Nations. Such inspections were carried out from 1991 to 1998 and were resumed in November 2002. Despite these inspections, the extent of Iraq’s biological warfare capabilities is still unknown.

Iraq’s unique situation stems from its defeat by a U.S.-led international coalition in the 1991 Gulf War in which Iraq’s soldiers were driven from Kuwait, a neighboring country Iraq had attempted to seize. As a condition of surrender, Iraq’s leader Saddam Hussein agreed to declare within fifteen days all...