Reply #1: This is great timing. We here have all known it for two years, but...

[Brotherjohn]

... the general public as a whole just heard the Bush administration say "mushroom cloud" and have been hiding under a desk ever since.

It was clear from the beginning to anyone who was paying attention, and not cowed by fear of another 9-11 (or a desire for revenge for the first), that the administration was misleading the nation about the evidence they had showing Iraq to be a WMD threat. This was particularly clear regarding the alleged threat from nuclear weapons, the threat which was particularly, well, most threatening.

This was their "big gun" used to say "we must act NOW". Their most inflammatory and urgent rhetoric concerned "mushroom clouds" and the threat of terrorists obtaining nuclear weapons. Yet it was based primarily on two things: the bogus Niger-uranium deal, and the aluminum tubes. The Niger-uranium deal was shown to be bunk long ago (although a few die-hards still hold on to the claim by the Brits that they had another source for the claim, which of course they won't release). But the aluminum tubes case was also full of holes, and was long overdue for a re-examination.

As the NYT points out, the tubes were the ONLY piece of physical evidence the administration had to make their case for an Iraqi nuclear weapons program. That this evidence was weak, and completely debunked by our own best experts and the I.A.E.A, BEFORE the war, is a fact that is extremely pertinent to this election. Especially since the administration wss saying that the tubes were "only suitable" for nuclear wepons production, a clear lie. Kudos to the NY times for releasing this extensive investigation into the matter before the election.