During an interview that appeared on Frontline on January 23, 2006, former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke said: ” ‘CIA had totally missed it. …We had bombed everything we could bomb in Iraq [during the 1991 Gulf War], but missed an enormous nuclear-weapons development facility. Didn’t know it was there, never dropped one bomb on it. [Then-Secretary of Defense] Dick Cheney looked at that report [an Iraqi progress report found at the facility] and said, *Here’s what the Iraqis themselves are saying: That there’s this huge facility that was never hit during the war; that they were very close to making a nuclear bomb, and CIA didn’t know it.* ‘ Clarke concluded: ‘I’m sure he said to himself, *I can never trust CIA again to tell me when a country is about to make a nuclear bomb.* There’s no doubt that the Dick Cheney who comes back into office nine years later has that as one of the things burnt into his memory: *Iraq wants a nuclear weapon. Iraq was that close to getting a nuclear weapon. And CIA hadn’t a clue.* ‘ ”
– Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, Pages 495-496