Did they, or didn't they?

There's been a small brouhaha about the online publication of some documents detailing Iraqi weapons programs. It seems that, lack of WMD material to the contrary, Iraq was fairly close to developing a nuclear weapon, at least in terms of know-how.

Michael Barone:

On the whole issue of WMDs in Iraq, I keep coming back to the thought that no responsible American or allied leader could assume, before March 2003, that Iraq was not developing weapons of mass destruction. It had developed and used them in the past, and it refused to cooperate with weapons inspectors. If your duty is to protect Americans, what piece of intelligence could convince you that Iraq was not developing WMDs? In my view, there was no need to continue the inspection process in 2002 and 2003, and we evidently did so to get the support of Britain and other allies.

So the NYT is mad that we published material that could help other people develop weapons, but they also criticize a war whose purpose was to remove the authors of that material. Makes you wonder whose side they're on.