The British Royal Air Force has developed and tested its own conventional warhead able to generate an electro-magnetic pulse. Some of the tests were done in the US, and US officials have said that the British weapon works better than the one they are trying to develop. The weapon is carried to the target area by a cruise missile or unmanned aircraft and detonated. Its pulse of electromagnetic radiation can disable or destroy computers, communications equipment (radios, switchboards), radars, and possibly power plants. It is assumed that such weapons would be used in the first wave of attacks against Iraq.--Stephen V Cole