in the Financial Times reported that "French intelligence had seized a separate shipment of tubes to the US, and tested their tolerance by spinning them to 98,000 revolutions per minute, concluding they were too sophisticated to have alternative uses." The Times also reported that Secretary of State Colin Powell was denied permission by French political authorities from using this information in his February 5, 2003, speech before the U.N. Security Council. In a speech before the New America Foundation American Strategy Program Policy Forum on October 19, 2005, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson (Ret.), a former Chief of Staff for the State Department from 2002–2005, commented on this. According to Wilkerson, "The French came in the middle of my deliberations at the CIA and said, we have just spun aluminum tubes, and by God, we did it to this RPM, et cetera, et cetera, and it was all, you know, proof positive that the aluminum tubes were not for mortar casings or artillery casings, they were for centrifuges. Otherwise, why would you have such exquisite instruments? We were wrong. We were wrong." President Bush's State of the Union address In his January 28, 2003, State of the Union address, Bush stated: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production." Colin Powell at the UN On February 5, 2003, Colin Powell spoke to the United Nations Security Council: Since 1998, [Saddam's] efforts to reconstitute his nuclear program have been focused on acquiring the third and last component, sufficient fissile material to produce a nuclear explosion. To make the fissile material, he needs to develop an ability to enrich uranium. Saddam Hussein is determined to get his hands on a nuclear bomb. He is so determined that he has made repeated covert attempts to acquire high-specification aluminum tubes from 11 different countries, even after inspections resumed. These tubes are controlled by the Nuclear Suppliers Group precisely because they can be used as centrifuges for enriching uranium. By now, just about everyone has heard of these tubes, and we all know that there are differences of opinion. There is controversy about what these tubes are for. Most U.S. experts think they are intended to serve as rotors in centrifuges used to enrich uranium. Other experts, and the Iraqis