"The only other explanation was that the missiles really did hit WMD facilities and that our intelligence had selected good targets for the limited missile strikes. The emphasis on the urgency of checking the presidential sites seems to confirm this. Saddam had attempted to exclude a number of facilities on the premise that they were his personal palaces and not subject to UNSCOM inspections. That, in fact, was what caused Saddam to bar inspectors in late 1998, and what prompted the missile attacks.

Someone very high up worried about nuclear and at least chemical contamination at these presidential sites. That anxiety seems to have come from the knowledge of what those sites actually held."