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	George W Bush Jnr	Bamford cited a recent address by President Bush that cited documents, which allegedly proved Iraq was continuing to pursue a nuclear program, that were later shown to be forgeries. "It is absurd that the president of the United States mentioned in a speech before the world information from phony documents and no one got fired. That alone has offended intelligence professionals throughout the services." James Bamford in UPI March 19, 2003
	IAEA	The inspectors last report to the UN security council in 1999 says, "Iraq's programme had been very well funded and was aimed at the development and production of a small arsenal of nuclear weapons, but that there were no indications that Iraq had achieved its programme objective, or produced or otherwise acquired any meaningful amounts of weapon-usable nuclear material. The report additionally included statements to the effect that there were no indications that Iraq had retained the physical capability (facilities and hardware) to be able to produce weapon-usable nuclear material in amounts of any practical significance. The report also stressed that "no indication" of prohibited items or activities was not the same as their "non existence". IAEA report to UN 1999 [PDF]
	Michael Levi	Leading experts and many in the intelligence community agree that Saddam Hussein still needs several years to produce enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear bomb. Thus, when Vice President Dick Cheney warned that Iraq could quickly obtain nuclear weapons, he could only have been referring to one thing: Iraq might acquire the crucial fissile material it needs abroad, through theft or on the black market... Certainly, Saddam Hussein's nuclear potential is greater than that posed by terrorists working without state support. Intelligence reports suggest that Iraq has the implosion technology needed to make a bomb from 20 kilograms of highly enriched uranium...The same uranium Iraq seeks abroad might be bought by terrorists and fashioned into bombs. A terrorist group like Al Qaeda, if it were to obtain a nuclear weapon, would be more likely than Iraq to use it... Michael Levi, New York Times, 23 September 2002
	Khidir Hamza	What is not recognized by the world community, though, is the determination with which the regime of Saddam Hussein intends to pursue programs to produce weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons, once sanctions are lifted. The nuclear weapons group is still in place; the expertise is still there; and Saddam Hussein and his colleagues are well practiced in the arts of deception. Khidhir Hamza, former Iraqi Scientist, in the Atomic Bulletin    disputed
	US and Iraq in the 1980s	The documents show that during this period [early 80s] of renewed U.S. support for Saddam, he had invaded his neighbor (Iran), had long-range nuclear aspirations that would "probably" include "an eventual nuclear weapon capability," harbored known terrorists in Baghdad, abused the human rights of his citizens, and possessed and used chemical weapons on Iranians and his own people. The U.S. response was to renew ties, to provide intelligence and aid to ensure Iraq would not be defeated by Iran, and to send a high-level presidential envoy named Donald Rumsfeld to shake hands with Saddam (20 December 1983). National Security Archive
	Khidir Hamza	"We knew then that we should never again put so much of our program in a single location where it would be vulnerable, so we began to build uranium enrichment facilities, many facilities, and we built 400 of them and they're all over the country. Some of them look like farmhouses, some of them look like classrooms, some of them look like warehouses. You'll never find them. They don’t turn out much but every day they turn out a little bit of nuclear materials." Khidir Hamza quoted by Richard Perle in an October 2001 speech.

External links:

NTI - Iraq - Ted Turner's Nuclear Threat Initiative summarizes Iraq's nuclear, biological and chemical weapons potential.