Today, Britain's Times Online reports that six Arab states - Morroco, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, UAE, and Saudi Arabia - have announced plans to establish their own nuclear programs.

All want to build civilian nuclear energy programmes, as they are permitted to under international law. But the sudden rush to nuclear power has raised suspicions that the real intention is to acquire nuclear technology which could be used for the first Arab atomic bomb. (Times Online, 11/4)

Importantly, this news comes one day after the New York Times reported that administration officials had posted documents, allegedly captured in Iraq, that included information describing how to build a nuclear bomb. The documents were posted over the objections of intelligence chief John Negroponte. A week after the International Atomic Energy Agency says it privately protested the website's disclosures, U.S. officials finally took down the documents - a day before the New York Times published its story.