I realize that several people (apparently including Rama) have attempted to point to Israel's bombing of Osiraq as the catalyst for Iraq's nuclear program, but it just does not hold up to scrutiny. Iraqi defectors as well as the IAEA's post Gulf War investigations found that Iraq had a clandestine program dating back to the late 1970's. 

Most of Iraq's nuclear work was done at Al Tuwaitha. Although the IAEA had access to Al Tuwaitha, it was extremely limited with the majority of the complex off limits to IAEA inspectors because no “declared nuclear activity” was taking place there. Evidently Blix saw nothing wrong with this.

For the section quoting (although I did not include the quote to avoid POV) Blix praising Iraq compliance on the eve of the Invasion of Kuwait and during the beginning of Iraq's crash bomb program: NuclearFuel, August 20, 1990