NY Times notices Saddam had nuke bomb plans

In a pre election slap at Republicans the NY Times has published a story that suggest that the release of information from Iraq's WMD program may be helping Iran build their own. Yes, this is the same paper of record that has been telling us there was no WMD program in Iraq and that the nuke program has been abandoned.

The paper also claimed that officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency had complained about the web site, but the Times later added that "a spokesman for Gregory L. Schulte, the American ambassador, denied that anyone from the agency had approached Mr. Schulte about the Web site."

The premise of the story is also suspect since we already know that Iran got its own plans from Pakistan's Khan network.

This is just another bad faith attempt by the NY Times to undermine Republicans the week before the election. I guess they need a distraction from Kerry's military education flap.

Wretchard at the Belmont Club comments:

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Posting very sensitive, undoubtedly secret restricted data is treason, isn't it? And very irresponsible. The NYT should know. I'm rather disappointed in the Times for warning me, this late in the game, of the terrible dangers that lurked in Saddam's archives. Recipes for unthinkable weapons that could have been given to just anyone, something Saddam surely wouldn't do unlike the Bush administration which evidently would. They should have warned us sooner, such as during the days when Abu Nidal was in residence in Baghdad, and all those men of good will who are now cutting off the heads of Iraqis by the gross were in charge of those very documents whose shadow menaces the world. But they really didn't exist then, did they? And even if they did they were in safe hands. Because if they did, then taking down Saddam was a responsible thing to do. But they exist now and releasing those newly existing secrets is a terribly irresponsible thing to do. It was the dream of alchemists to turn lead into gold and they failed. The NYT has succeeded.

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There is more about this travesty of an article.

Gateway Pundit notes that Saddam was only a year away from building the bomb. H'mm wasn't that something that was said in the pre war debate? Also, do not miss Jim Geraghty's comments on the article.