http://www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/Iraq/Nuclear/2121_2122.htmlnote :
5 November 2005
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation concludes that financial gain, not desire to influence foreign policy, was the motivation underlying the forgery of documents regarding Nigerian uranium ore sought by Iraq.
--"FBI: Financial Gain Drove Uranium Forgery," Associated Press, 5 November 2005.
1 February 2005
The CIA releases an unusual report officially disavowing those assessments that it made prior to the invasion of Iraq due to subsequent findings that disprove such notions. The report, dated 18 January 2005, is titled "Iraq: No Large-Scale Chemical Warfare Efforts since Early 1990s" and claims Iraq gave up its chemical and nuclear weapons programs in 1991. The report is considered unusual by the intelligence community due to the fact that the CIA generally does not contradict prior intelligence estimates. The Iraq Survey Group provided the information for the report, and David Kay, former head of the team, asserts "we were almost all wrong."
--Greg Miller, "CIA Corrects Itself on Arms," Los Angeles Times, 1 February 2005. 30 September 2004
The Iraq Survey Group (ISG) releases a comprehensive report detailing its findings related to Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs. In it, the ISG reports that Saddam Hussein wanted to recreate Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction capabilities after sanctions were removed. Inspectors also believe that while Hussein aspired to develop a nuclear weapons capability, his post-sanction planning was more geared toward the development of ballistic missiles and tactical chemical warfare capabilities.
Among its other findings, the ISG says Saddam Hussein ended Iraq’s nuclear program following the first Gulf War in 1991. No evidence suggests a coordinated effort to restart that program thereafter. Hussein did, however, express his intent to maintain the intellectual capital that had developed within the nuclear program prior to 1991, but the ISG found that this was in a process of decay in successive years. Iraq also sought to conceal elements of its program from inspectors following the 1991 war. The regime’s secretive efforts included concealing and preserving documents related to the nuclear program, hiding technology, and transferring many nuclear scientists to jobs in Iraq’s Military Industrial Commission (MIC) where they would maintain their weapons knowledge and gain ongoing hands-on experience. In addition, the ISG report states that specific projects, including efforts to build a rail gun and copper vapor laser, might have been useful in future activities aimed at restarting a nuclear weapons program, but they did not uncover evidence of such a purpose. The report also concludes that Saddam Hussein purposefully sought to spread ambiguity about his weapons of mass destruction capabilities. According to interviews conducted by the ISG, he
privately told his aides that he sought to deceive the world about his weapons capabilities in order to avoid appearing weak as well as to deter aggression from Iraq’s neighbors, especially Iran. However, the inspectors’ analysis concludes that the regime never reconciled the inherent contradiction between international demands for disarmament and this desire to maintain a strategic deterrent.
—"Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq’s WMD," Central Intelligence Agency, 30 September 2004,
http://www.cia.gov/. in another words Hitchens denies what the CIA and the FBI already have said : Saddam didn't do anything to restart a nuclear activity in Iraq after 1991, but maybe considered ambiguous in his private speeches on the matter...
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