Tape recordings released over the weekend show that Saddam Hussein had an active nuclear weapons program at least as recently as 2000 - but the press has decided the bombshell development isn't newsworthy.
Speaking at the Intelligence Group Summit in Arlington, Va., Saddam tapes translator Bill Tierney revealed that in one recorded conversation, the Iraqi dictator can be heard discussing a plan to enrich uranium using a technique known as plasma separation.
Though U.S. weapons inspectors found that 1.8 tons of Saddam's 500 ton uranium stockpile had been partially enriched, they failed to turn up any evidence of an ongoing enrichment program.
Instead, Iraq Survey Group Chief Charles Duelfer concluded that Baghdad terminated its nuclear weapons program no later than 1995.
News that Saddam had an ongoing enrichment program comports with the account of Dr. Mahdi Obeidi, the nuclear physicist who ran Iraq's nuclear centrifuge program.
After turning himself in to U.S. forces in July 2003, Dr. Obeidi revealed that he had successfully hidden centrifuge parts and blueprints from U.N. weapons inspectors on Saddam's orders.
Despite the staggering implications of the audiotaped uranium revelation, only one mainstream media outlet had covered the news as of Monday morning.
Noting that Saddam's enrichment program was "totally unknown to U.N. weapons inspectors," the Washington Times editorialized on Monday: "It is apparent that the American public has much more to learn about . . . . precisely when Saddam's nuclear weapons programs actually stopped."
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