As the United States prepares for a possible war with Iraq, the Air Force has a large inventory of bombs and other air-deliverable munitions, according to a service official.

"We've been building at high rates for several years now, so we're actually way beyond [the] expected inventories that we thought we would have at this time," said Dr. Steve Butler, director of engineering at the Air Force Air Materiel Command's Air Armament Center at Eglin AFB, Fla.

"We are building at an incredibly high rate," he said, and "we've built an industrial base capable of responding to these rapid production techniques." The weapons all work well "and we've got plenty."

Butler said in a March 7 telephone interview that air-delivered weapons could be divided into four categories: