If we are to believe Wilson we must first believe that the ex-premeir of Nigeria lied, that the Senate report is a lie, that Wilson lied to the CIA's debriefers and the CIA Reports officer lied.

Please note that Wilson refers to the CIA report in his article.

a C.I.A. report summing up my trip

And I have linked to the report, and quoted what the CIA Reports Officer said. To my knowledge Wilson has never denied what he said.

Now ,if we go back and read his article, we will see that it is most carefully wordsmithed. What he says is:

While I never saw the report, I was told that it referred to a memorandum of agreement that documented the sale of uranium yellowcake

Note that the word "sale" is used. A  sale is not an attempt. A sale is not an attempt to purchse. Yet what did Bush say?

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

Note that the claim is "sought" not that a "sale" was made.

Read onward and you will see, the word "sale" or its synonym used again and again.

when the ambassador told me that she knew about the allegations of uranium sales to Iraq...It did not take long to conclude that it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place....In short, there's simply too much oversight over too small an industry for a sale to have transpired.

His conclusions were that a sale had not been made. So, why did he not say?

"After my investigation I found that an attemot to purchase, according to my sources in Nigeria, had been made and rebuffed by Nigeria."

Simple, factual and straightforward. Instead he leaves out what he told the CIA and writes.

I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.

What he has cleverly done is to tell the truth in answer to the question about "sales," but by failing to provide the context, provided a showcase for the Left to claim that "Bush lied."

A more cynical person might also ask if the VP's office actually asked about sales, or did they ask about attempts? And if the request was for sales, why did the intelligence report, which most likely came from the Brit's information, use the word sale, instead of "attempt to purchase?"

This is what Wilson told the CIA during his debriefing after he returned from his mission.

The CIA's DO gave the former ambassador's information ......The reports officer said that a "good" grade was merited because the information responded to at least some of the outstanding questions in the Intelligence Community, but did not provide substantial new information. He (Reports Officer)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.

So there you have it. He wrote one thing in his infamous NYT artcle, and told the CIA another.