The CPD reports officer told Committee staff that the former ambassador's wife "offered up his name" and a memorandum to the Deputy Chief of the CPD on February 12, 2002, from the former ambassador's wife says, "my husband has good relations with both the PM [prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity."

They were not the victim of a conspiracy. Joe Wilson wrote about the president publicly. He was then refuted by the WH and talked about in a newspaper column.

Its as simple as that. Robert Novak claims that she was outed long before he wrote the column and if she hadn't been he would have outed her.

For anyone to believe any of thier claims Robert Novak must be a liar.

Is that was the pro-Wilson camp believes? Novak is lying, the president, Libby, Rove, Cheney and anyone else who doesn't support the Wilsons.

Did Fitzgerald totally bungle the investigation. Etc...

So many things have to be swallowed in order to believe the Wilsons.

They my believe it themselves because they have to now but that doesn't mean we should and just because we don't doesn't mean we hate them.

proves NOTHING other that she believed, rightfully, that he was as qualified as anyone,

The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa

Mayaki said, however, that in June 1999,( ) businessman, approached him and insisted that Mayaki meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss "expanding commercial relations" between Niger and Iraq. The intelligence report said that Mayaki interpreted "expanding commercial relations" to mean that the delegation wanted to discuss uranium yellowcake sales.

( ) The CIA's DO gave the former ambassador's information a grade of "good," which means that it added to the IC's body of understanding on the issue........He said he judged that the most important fact in the report was that the Nigerien officials admitted that the Iraqi delegation had traveled there in 1999, and that the Nigerien Prime Minister believed the Iraqis were interested in purchasing uranium, because this provided some confirmation of foreign government service reporting.

Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer. In July 2003, the fact that Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer was classified. Not only was it classified, but it was not widely known outside the intelligence community. Valerie Wilson's friends, neighbors, college classmates had no idea she had another life.

High ranking CIA officials told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that they disputed the claim that Plame was involved in the final decision to send Wilson, and indicated that the operations official who made it was not present at the meeting where Wilson was chosen. And Newsday reported the following: A senior intelligence officer confirmed that Plame was a Directorate of Operations undercover officer who worked 'alongside' the operations officers who asked her husband to travel to Niger. "But he said she did not recommend her husband to undertake the Niger assignment. 'They (the officers who did ask Wilson to check the uranium story) were aware of who she was married to, which is not surprising,' he said. 'There are people elsewhere in government who are trying to make her look like she was the one who was cooking this up, for some reason,' he said. 'I can't figure out what it could be.' 'We paid his (Wilson's) airfare. But to go to Niger is not exactly a benefit. Most people you'd have to pay big bucks to go there,' the senior intelligence official said. Wilson said he was reimbursed only for expenses. (July 22 2003)

Wilson wrote: "Apart from being the conduit of a message from a colleague in her office asking if I would be willing to have a conversation about Niger's uranium industry, Valerie had had nothing to do with the matter."

Also, it is important to note that while Bush continues to falsely claim that the Senate Intelligence Committee found the administration had not "manipulated the intelligence and misled the American people about why we went to war," the Intel Committee Senators say just the opposite:

The Committee staff work on two other sections of the investigation is not finished: whether public statements were substantiated by intelligence information and the use of intelligence information provided by the Iraqi National Congress.

That the United States Senate has a body called the Intelligence Committee is an irony George Orwell would have truly appreciated. In a world without Doublespeak, the panel, chaired by GOP Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas, would be known by a more appropriate name - the Senate Coverup Committee.

For most analysts, the information in that report lent more credibility, because the ambassador himself came back and said that in 1999, Iraqi government officials visited Niger and sought commercial contacts

The ambassador has said that his wife had nothing to do with recommending him. And when we interviewed... our committee interviewed his wife, she then... she was asked specifically if she had... who had recommended the ambassador go. And she said that "I can't remember exactly whether I recommended him or my boss did." And other people... other agents reported that it was on her recommendation that the ambassador was sent.

SEN. KIT BOND: Well, the simple fact is, when the president submitted six different reports, his speechwriters submitted them, and then submitted the state of the union address in which the 16 words were included, at that point the Central Intelligence Agency cleared that report. MARGARET WARNER: May I just... SEN. KIT BOND: So all the president has to go on. Now the ambassador is going around on the John Kerry Web site and saying the president misled the nation. I'm told that he has written that the president lied. And that is an egregious political charge. It's not a literacy flair. It's a hoax and a fraud.

The former ambassador's wife told Committee staff that she only attended the meeting to introduce her husband and left after about three minutes.

Squeaky - My links to the Senate Report are direct quotes from the report, not a conclusion by Senator Roberts.

As Media Matters for America has previously noted, although the Senate Intelligence Committee's "Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq" concluded that the administration had not exerted "pressure" on the intelligence community to arrive at certain conclusions -- a conclusion that has been challenged by some senior intelligence officials -- it postponed an investigation into the administration's use of intelligence until after the 2004 presidential election. As Boston Globe columnist Tom Oliphant reminded viewers later in the NewsHour segment, it was the as yet uncompleted "phase two" of the Senate Intelligence Committee probe that was to determine whether the administration had manipulated or distorted prewar intelligence.

Conclusion: The plan to send the former ambassador to Niger was suggested by the former ambassador's wife, a CIA employee.

The former Ambassador, either by design or through ignorance, gave the American people and, for that matter, the world a version of events that was inaccurate, unsubstantiated, and misleading. Surely, the Senate Intelligence Committee, which has unique access to all of the facts, should have been able to agree on a conclusion that would correct the public record. Unfortunately, we were unable to do so.

The CIA's DO gave the former ambassador's information a grade of "good," which means that it added to the IC's body of understanding on the issue, ( )......The reports officer said that a "good" grade was merited.... but did not provide substantial new information. He said he judged that the most important fact in the report was that the Nigerien officials admitted that the Iraqi delegation had traveled there in 1999, and that the Nigerien Prime Minister believed the Iraqis were interested in purchasing uranium, because this provided some confirmation of foreign government service reporting.

The CPD reports officer told Committee staff that the former ambassador's wife "offered up his name" and a memorandum to the Deputy Chief of the CPD on February 12, 2002, from the former ambassador's wife says, "my husband has good relations with both the PM [prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity."

See that Squeaky. Are you disputing that the Reports Officer said that?

Are you telling us that the memorandum didn't exist? Are you telling us that the CPD reports officer is lying?