Thank You, New York Times

So, in the new tradition of liberals accidentally speaking the truth that will hurt their cause, the New York Times has now told the world that Saddam Hussein was really pursuing nuclear technology. Their own words:

"Among the dozens of documents in English were Iraqi reports written in the 1990s and in 2002 for United Nations inspectors in charge of making sure Iraq had abandoned its unconventional arms programs after the Persian Gulf war. Experts say that at the time, Mr. Hussein’s scientists were on the verge of building an atom bomb, as little as a year away." "

In September, the Web site began posting the nuclear documents, and some soon raised concerns. On Sept. 12, it posted a document it called “Progress of Iraqi nuclear program circa 1995.” That description is potentially misleading since the research occurred years earlier.

The Iraqi document is marked “Draft FFCD Version 3 (20.12.95),” meaning it was preparatory for the “Full, Final, Complete Disclosure” that Iraq made to United Nations inspectors in March 1996. The document carries three diagrams showing cross sections of bomb cores, and their diameters.

On Sept. 20, the site posted a much larger document, “Summary of technical achievements of Iraq’s former nuclear program.” It runs to 51 pages, 18 focusing on the development of Iraq’s bomb design. Topics included physical theory, the atomic core and high-explosive experiments. By early October, diplomats and officials said, United Nations arms inspectors in New York and their counterparts in Vienna were alarmed and discussing what to do."

It's all there. Iraq was researching and trying to design nuclear arms. But notice how they are still trying to say that the research and the weapons we found were not "what we were looking for."

But, looking at translations here and here, it seems pretty clear that Saddam had weapons and was trying to develop more. But the NYT framing this discussion to say that Bush is incompetent, because he allowed these documents to be posted. Imagine that! The people that have no problem telling the world about any confidential info that might hurt their cause, are upset because the thing some things should remain secret. Give me a break.

I don't doubt that there was plenty of Iraqi research documents on the site. But, more importantly than this being a questionable decision about what gets released to the public (the Times has some experience there), it shows that as late as 2002 Saddam was rebuilding nuclear and chemical weapons facilities.

So why weren't the headlines reading "SADDAM WAS WORKING TOWARD NUCLEAR IRAQ", or something similar? I hope I don't need to answer that for you.