A modified Wind-Corrected Munitions Dispenser (WCMD) packed with 3,700 non-explosive penetrator rods made its first combat appearance in Iraq after a rushed 98-day, $40 million development effort, a U.S. Air Force official said May 2.

The Air Force is only now disclosing details of the new CBU-107 Passive Attack Weapon (PAW), which a senior acquisition official first made public in testimony before House lawmakers last month.

The 1,000-pound class weapon is designed to strike unshielded targets where explosive fills are unnecessary or undesirable, said Col. James Knox, area attack program director at the Air Armament Center at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla. Attractive options include chemical and biological weapons targets, which an explosive weapon would jettison into the atmosphere, and "soft" structures in populated areas where the potential for collateral damage is high, Knox said.

"You might want to deny or degrade the military target without destroying adjacent structures," Knox said.