By Kevin Graman / Staff writer

The fear of terrorism has brought the United States to the brink of war with Iraq, a nation believed to have weapons capable of killing even more Americans than the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks by al Qaeda terrorists on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

President Bush has vowed to rout out terrorist organizations around the world before they can strike again. In his State of the Union speech last year, Bush named Iraq, along with Iran and North Korea, part of the "axis of evil," nations with weapons of mass destruction and a hatred for the United States.

The Bush administration believes these nations could unleash chemical, biological or nuclear weapons on their neighbors or give them to terrorist groups which could use them on the United States.

In November 2002, the United Nations passed Resolution 1441, which requires the government of Saddam Hussein to document its chemical, biological or nuclear weapons programs. The resolution also says that "false statements or omissions" in Iraq's declaration constitutes a "material breach" of Iraq's obligation, justifying military action against Saddam's government.

The U.N. resolution was written this way at the behest of the United States and Britain. Both countries claim to have secret intelligence showing Iraq has chemical and biological weapons programs. They also believe Iraq wants, or has, nuclear weapons.

The U.S. government argues it is Iraq's responsibility to prove it doesn't have weapons of mass destruction.

Iraq claims it has destroyed its chemical and biological weapons and abandoned its nuclear weapons program. Iraq has granted U.N. weapons inspectors access to sites where such weapons may be produced or stored.

In the three months since Resolution 1441 was adopted, U.N. weapons inspectors have found no "smoking gun" that Iraq has such weapons. The Bush administration is unconvinced and continues to call on Iraq to reveal all its weapons.

"The fact that the inspectors have not come up with new evidence of Iraq's (weapons of mass destruction) program could be evidence in and of itself of Iraq's noncooperation," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said.

In other words, if inspectors find weapons of mass destruction, Iraq has violated the resolution. If inspectors don't find such weapons, it's because Iraq is hiding them in violation of the resolution. Either way, the United States feels it has the right to take action against Iraq.

How did Saddam's government find itself in this position?

Iraq invaded Kuwait on Aug. 2, 1990. Seven months later, an international coalition led by President Bush's father, George H.W. Bush, drove Iraqi troops out of Kuwait and decimated Saddam's military forces.

The Gulf War ended in a cease-fire under which Saddam remained in power as long as he agreed to give up his claim to Kuwait and destroy his weapons of mass destruction.

As part of the cease-fire agreement, the United Nations imposed sanctions on Iraq until it could prove it no longer had biological or chemical weapons or a nuclear weapons program. The United States says Saddam has never done this.

The former President Bush has been criticized for not invading Iraq and ousting Saddam at the time. Many analysts have said since that the United States and its allies wanted to preserve Iraq, even in a weakened state, as a buffer against Iranian dominance of the region.

Soon after the Gulf War, the Kuwaiti government uncovered an alleged Iraqi plot to assassinate the senior Bush during a visit to the nation he helped liberate.

Iraq is ruled by Sunni Muslims, a minority in the mostly Shiite Muslim nation. After the U.S. victory, Saddam's elite Republican Guard troops put down a Shiite rebellion in southern Iraq. Critics of the former President Bush say the United States led these Shiites to believe they would have U.S. support for their uprising and then abandoned them to be killed by the tens of thousands after the war.

A new regime in Iraq today would have to include this Shiite majority. The United States fears that without an orderly transition of power, the vacuum created by Saddam's death, exile or imprisonment would result in a bloodbath against Iraq's former Sunni rulers and the imposition of a fundamentalist Muslim government much like that of Iraq's neighbor, Iran.

Threats to the world's oil supply was the issue in 1991, and some antiwar groups claim oil is still the issue. With total reserves estimated at 112 billion barrels, Iraq's potential oil wealth is second only to Saudi Arabia.

Meanwhile, Osama bin Laden, leader of the al Qaeda terrorist network, is believed to have survived a U.S. invasion of Afghanistan where he had been hiding. Bush administration officials have suggested a relationship between bin Laden and Iraq, even though al Qaeda is an Islamic extremist group with a natural dislike for secular, or nonreligious, governments like Saddam's.

Armed with U.N. Resolution 1441 and others since the Gulf War, the Bush administration wants to lead another U.N. coalition to invade Iraq, rid it of weapons of mass destruction and overthrow Saddam Hussein.

Currently, the United Nations only supports weapons inspections and is reluctant to endorse a war. If the United States attacks Iraq, it may have only a handful of allies.