What's more, the Committee found that "Iraq had kept its cadre of nuclear weapons personnel trained and in positions that could keep their skills intact for eventual use in a reconstituted nuclear program."

To be sure, the Committee managed to come up with alternative explanations for these developments, such as labeling Saddam's nuclear team "former nuclear scientists" who just happened to be working at "former nuclear facilities" while carrying out work unrelated to any weapons program.

But nowhere in the Committee's conclusions is there any mention of the 1.8 tons of low-enriched uranium that Saddam managed to accumulate at his "former" nuclear weapons plant at al-Tuwaitha. Just last month the U.S. Energy Department transported that stockpile out of Baghdad to prevent terrorists from getting their hands on it.

And neither does the Committee discuss the 500 tons of un-enriched uranium Saddam kept at the same facility - material that certainly could have kept those "former" nuclear scientists busy, especially if they were able to convert some of that "dual use equipment."

Of course, critics of the war say fears about Saddam's uranium stockpile were overblown, that the massive cache of nuke fuel was kept under seal and inspected annually by the International Atomic Energy Agency - even after U.N. weapons inspectors were kicked out in 1998.

That would be the same IAEA that did such a bang-up job of keeping tabs on North Korea's nuclear program for the last 10 years - right up until 2002, when Pyongyang announced, "Surprise, we have eight nuclear bombs."

Editor's note: