“The key weapon in the warriors’ political arsenal was the fear inspired by a nuclear-armed Saddam Hussein…..Initially, Safire predicted that the Iraqis would have the nuclear bomb ready to deliver to the United States by 1994 (“The first city he will take out is New York”). A few months into the crisis, in the midst of four consecutive columns on the subject, The Times man moved the deadline up to 1993….. Unfortunately, neither Safire nor anyone else in the West had any dependable information about the Iraqi nuclear program…. even Colin Powell saw the threat as years away.”
From Eric Alterman’s 1992 book, Sound and Fury, via Ziska. And Wampumblog has more deja vu.