OK,
It really came out a few weeks back what was probably going on in Iraq, and WHY we fell for it..

Two reasons - the first - they WERE doing R&D - more paperwork than anything, so to be ready when the UN bans ended

The second, and more important - Iraq was/is afraid of Iran. They wanted the Irainians to believe that there was a WMD program going on. Sadam believed that it would keep Iran in line, and never believed that the US would invade - no matter what. So Iraq ran a disinformation campaign that they WERE working on WMDs - and we bought it