http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2004/01/media-preview/
pollack.htm Why the intelligence community thought Iraq had WMDs (partial
reason): “Prior to 1991 the intelligence communities in the
United States and elsewhere believed that Iraq was at least five, and
probably closer to ten, years away from acquiring a nuclear weapon. Of
course, after the war we learned that in 1991 Iraq had been only six
to twenty-four months away from having a workable nuclear weapon. This
revelation stunned the analysts responsible for following the Iraqi
nuclear program. The lessons they took from it were that Iraq was
determined to acquire nuclear weapons and would go to any lengths to
do so; that in pursuit of this goal Iraq was willing to use
technology that Westerners considered crude and obsolete; that the
Iraqis were superb at concealment and deception; and that inspections
were inherently flawed—after all, there had been inspectors in
Iraq prior to 1990, and they had been completely fooled.” (This
is a very good piece.) 04:28