Saddam was a year away from a nuke - NYT!!!

[ovidsen]

That's what it says in today's story on how the US had to pull documents from the website containing captured Iraqi papers because some of them were basically "Nuclear Weapons for Dummies".

To wit:

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.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/03/world/middleeast/03cnd-documents.html?hp&ex=1162616400&en=d6e60f288e881789&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Some wingnuts are already saying this is PROOF that Iraq was about to go nuclear, and so the 2003 invasion was justified.

Is this true? Are the documents genuine? Did the NYTimes screw up or bury the lead?

Any help in clearing this up would be greatly appreciated.

ON EDIT: Thanks to the posters for putting this item into historical perspective. Maybe it's time for a letter or ten to the NYT to complain about their editors. The article declares that "...experts say." As in they said it when the story was prepared for publication. Not that they said it in 1990. Big difference.

[blm]

1. That was in 1991. There was no serious activity after that.

.

[Bob3]

2. the papers quoted date from before the 1991 war

not after. After wards well i'm sure he would have liked a nuke - people who have Nukes don't get invaded by the US but he lacked the personnel, equipment and material - other than that, he was ready to go.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. The bomb diagrams and plans were from before 1991.

[originalpckelly]

4. No, you are wrong. They weren't a year away from a nuke in 2002...

but in 1991. We stopped them from doing that. We found these plans. In fact our government used these plans in a secret report to the UN in order to justify Iraq, but even then they redacted the most dangerous stuff.

So there is no revelation here, except that al-Qaeda (or someone else who hates us) may now have the most detailed plans ever publicly available to build a nuclear weapon.

The rightwingers are directly responsible, because in their desperate attempt to prove Saddam had WMD, they released these plans.

[wtmusic]

5. According to Hussein Kamel everything was scrapped

in accordance with UNSCRs. Back when the UN was effective in dealing with war criminals.

[shadowknows69]

6. George told us 45 days

Another boost in polls for the war criminal I presume.

[wakeme2008]

7. read my post on the piece from Mother Jones

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=2559474&mesg_id=2559559

Yes he was in 1990 and yes Bush allowed all his 200 scientists to get away

[ovidsen]

16. Thank you!

That answers all of the important questions.

Methinks an editor or 2 at the NYT kinda dropped the ball here. The papers discussed in the article could have been dated March 2003 for all it says.

[meegbear]

8. The key wording is ...

as little as a year away.

There's a lot of things that are accessible "as little as a year away". Reality always shows it takes longer.

[originalpckelly]

9. You probably change the title of this post...

because it is simply not accurate in any sense.

[porphyrian]

10. Yeah, if he bought it from the ex-Soviet bloc. - n/t

[acmavm]

11. MORE PROOF (as if that were necessary) that the NYT isn't

fit to wrap garbage in.

[WilliamPitt]

12. They're talking about 1991

[NNN0LHI]

13. Saddam was a year away from a nuke - NYT!!! Something doesn't smell right here n/t

[KharmaTrain]

14. The Astroturf That Didn't Take Root...

There's the spin. This, folks, is what Karl Rove was hoping would be the buzz of the hate radio and cable news shows today. This was to dovetail into Saddam's show-trial conviction on Monday and the meme that progress is happening in Iraq...and that if you elect Democrats you will die.

Here's the article that was all set to be used to blast over the airwaves...and still may...and facts and dates don't matter...just the headline. If confronted about the '91 date, the Able Danger crowd is sure to counter that this shows that the plans still existed after '91 and is now hidden in some caves under Syria or Iran or Hoboken. It fits into the chemical weapons meme...that since Saddam supposedly used nerve gas against the Kurds in '88 is somehow not only justification for the '03 invasion but fuels the last remaining hope for the wingnuts that all these weapons exist...if not in their imaginations, they do exist. Denial isn't a river this year...it's an ocean!

[elehhhhna]

15. SEE? We could have been DEAD already! For YEARS! Since, like, 1982!!1!!1!!!

hugh AND series !11!


Thank YOU George W. Bush for saving our lives 24 YEARS AGO!!!!!!!111111!!!!!

And he was still boozing back then!

wow he is a HE~RO !!!1