So what else is new. I wish I had a nickel for every time I heard a U.N. inspector say something along the lines of "who knew?"

Nonetheless, by setting up the clandestine program and importing equipment, the Libyans were in breach of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which Gaddafi's government had long ago signed. "There were some imports and some activities they should have reported," ElBaradei said.

The veteran inspector said the findings highlighted the inadequacy of international inspections. IAEA teams have been visiting Libya for years and knew nothing about the equipment they saw Sunday. Some of it was found along dirt alleys in urban neighborhoods.

Even permission to allow surprise inspections would not guarantee discovery of a nuclear weapons program. "Low-level programs like this are difficult to detect. They can be run in a garage," ElBaradei said. "You would have to be lucky or have very good intelligence to run across it. We're doing a lot of soul-searching."

Of course the spin will be that it doesn't matter that the U.N. was utterly clueless, since it wasn't a very big nuclear program, and wasn't very far along.

How hard would it be to hide elements of a program that can be "run in a garage?" Just wondering.

A reminder of how badly the U.N. was surprised by Saddam's nuclear program after the Gulf War can be found here.

Sorry, but I still feel a lot safer with the U.S. military on the ground in Iraq instead of Hans Blix and his inspectors.