One should avoid ever being sure about such things, but yes, I recall my jaw hitting the floor when Russert let Cheney make that statement without challenging him. What facts could you possibly be referring to? Are you suggesting that Cheney's statement was ever plausible, for even a second?

EDIT: Just to be clear, what Cheney said is that they believed that Saddam had nuclear weapons, not that he was attempting to start a nuclear weapons program. If we didn't know it at the time, we now know that Cheney had zero basis for that statement. In fact, not even the most zealous Bush/Cheney propagandists inside or outside of the administration had made such a claim. So, take away the utter implausibility of the statement. Shouldn't Russert have wondered why we had never heard about this before then?

Cheney's statement was preposterous and Russert knew it (if he was listening to his guest and not to somebody talking in his ear piece about the upcoming commercial break).