Iraq's Atomic Weapons Program?

Before you start lambasting me as a Bush lackey, read this New York Times piece. I encourage you to read it in its context so you're sure not to miss anything.

At first the article reads like a chastising of Congressional Republicans for forcing these documents to be publicized. Fair enough, draw your own conclusions. What interests me is paragraph fourteen, which reads as follows.

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.

Now if I'm reading this correctly, AFTER Desert Storm (meanings, as seen above, 2002) documents were written up that indicated Saddam had an a-bomb program, one that we narrowly prevented from reaching fruition? Look, if you're a Republican stop cheering and wagging your finger, and if you're Democrat quit your pouting. Looking at this information objectively seems to raise some serious questions.

Chief among them is why the Times buried this story in the fourteenth frigging paragraph, and ONLY in the fourteenth! Everything else is an attack at placing nuclear blueprints on the internet, with paragraph fourteen consisting of two lines. If we rule out incompetence, it might be suggested that the Times has an agenda.

Once more: Iraq was close to developing an atomic bomb in 2002, a little a year away, which would have put them in control of one circa 2003. We invaded in 2003. I'll let you connect the dots.