Static, Non-WordPress Home Page…

I need to create a disclaimer front page for a new WP site I’m developing. I know I can use the Static Page option within WP but I don’t want to have any of the WP features viewable until the visitor has been through the disclaimer page first. I’ve tried modifying the .htaccess file by adding the following line of code:

DirectoryIndex index2.htm

Then I created the disclaimer on the index2.htm file and added a hyperlink back to index.php but that didn’t work at all. First of all, the hyperlink looped back to the disclaimer page –and even the home link from within WP world take me right back to the disclaimer page…

I know I could do this by installing WP in a sub-directory but I really don’t want to do that. I don’t want to make the URL’s for each page longer than they need to be, and I don’t want to have to decide what that sub-directory should be called and permanently set that in stone. I’d just rather be able to use the root URL with a non-WP “welcome” page that is only seen at initial loading of the site. Any ideas how I could pull this off?