| U. S. Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction: From World War II to Iraq originated in the National Security Archive’s interest in documenting the U.S. Intelligence Community’s production of intelligence concerning the most important weapons systems that other nations produced or tried to produce during World War II, the Cold War, and the post-Cold War era. Whether those nations were friendly, neutral or hostile, U.S. decision-makers were intensely interested in intelligence concerning their WMD and space systems. That intelligence was valuable for a number of reasons: assessing the threat posed by hostile or potentially hostile nations, negotiating and monitoring arms control agreements, aiding the formation of foreign and commercial policies--from seeking to forestall the proliferation of nuclear and other weaponry to evaluating requests for purchases of nuclear technology—as well as assessing the military capabilities of other nations and estimating the impact of potential military conflicts. |