Following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein by US forces in 2003, Qaddafi announced that his nation had an active weapons of mass destruction program, but was willing to allow international inspectors into his country to observe and dismantle them. The threat posed by illegal WMD programs had been cited by US President George W. Bush as one of his leading reasons for invading Iraq, and it is believed that after Saddam's downfall Qaddafi feared for the future of his own regime if he continued to keep and conceal the weapons. Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi was quoted as saying that Qaddafi had privately phoned him, admitting as much.
International inspectors turned up several thousand tonnes of chemical weaponry in Libya, as well as an active nuclear weapon program. The process of destroying the weapons continues(from wikipedia.org).
