VICE PRESIDENT DICK Cheney stated three days before U.S.-led coalition forces invaded Iraq this past March that Iraq "has reconstituted nuclear weapons." At the time, however, intelligence and other U.S. officials already disagreed about the evidence behind his statement, and events over the last few months have deepened doubts among the general public and members of Congress.
The international community discovered after Iraq's defeat in the 1991 Persian Gulf War that Iraq had a much more advanced nuclear weapons program than either the United States or the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had suspected. The IAEA was charged with undertaking inspections to ensure that …