In other news, investigative journalist Murray Waas is reporting President Bush was personally delivered intelligence reports before the Iraq war that cast doubt on his administration’s stated reasons for launching an invasion. One report, delivered in January 2003, said Saddam Hussein was highly unlikely to attack the United States unless “ongoing military operations risked the imminent demise of his regime.” Another intelligence report dated October 2002 said both the Energy Department and the State Department’s intelligence bureau had concluded Saddam Hussein’s attempts to purchase aluminum tubes were “intended for conventional weapons.” Waas writes that the disclosure is “the first evidence that the president himself knew of the sharp debate within the government over the aluminum tubes during the time that he, [Vice President Dick] Cheney, and other members of the Cabinet were citing the tubes as clear evidence of an Iraqi nuclear program. Neither the president nor the vice president told the public about the disagreement among the agencies.”