A "systematic abuse of prosecutorial discretion", they call it.

We have three key documents to look at in regards to this. First we need to establish up front what the President said in his 2003 SOTU.

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

Note that he did not say "purchase" or any variation of that word. This is an important point and I ask you to remember it. Because any claim that the President said "purchased" or any variation thereof is wrong.

The next document is Wilson's infamous NYT article of 7/6/03.

Wilson's lead comment was:

Did the Bush administration manipulate intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons programs to justify an invasion of Iraq?
... 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.

...Cheney's office had questions about a particular intelligence report. While I never saw the report, I was told that it referred to a memorandum of agreement that documented the sale of uranium yellowcake -- a form of lightly processed ore -- by Niger to Iraq in the late 1990's

Now this was in February of 2002. The question supposedly is over the sale of yellowcake.  I ask. Was that the question? Or was the question over Saddam seeking to purchase yellowcake?  I went to Google and immediately found this:

As the prosecutor said at today's press conference.... Some interesting tidbits that will need to be clarified:..On page 4 we read:
On or about May 29, 2003, in the White House, LIBBY asked an Under Secretary of State ("Under Secretary") for information concerning the unnamed ambassador's travel to Niger to investigate claims about Iraqi efforts to acquire uranium yellowcake.

Now where does the above come from? Larry Johnson and the TPM Café.

So. Who is right here? The SP or Joe Wilson? It's an important question. Because if Wilson task was to investigate an attempt to purchase, why does he speak of "sale" time and again in his article, and  only mentions "efforts to buy" one time?

I again went to Google and found this from David Corn in Huffington Post.

Wilson's now-controversial trip to Niger, where he was sent to by the CIA to check out allegations that Iraq was shopping for weapons-grade uranium there. (He concluded there was nothing to this charge.)

Here we have two sources, easily obtained..took me less than 30 seconds.. they both say the same thing. Wilson was sent to see if Saddam had attempted to purchase. And no one can say that either Corn or Johnson is biased in favor of the administration.

And note the  last sentence of Corn's remark. "He (Wilson) concluded there was nothing to this charge."

No David Corn that is wrong. If we believe the CIA, he actually did. But Wilson chose to place great emphasis on what was not asked. Was there a "sale?"

I was not surprised, then, when the ambassador told me that she knew about the allegations of uranium sales to Iraq -- and that she felt she had already debunked them in her reports to Washington....It did not take long to conclude that it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place.....(later) In short, there's simply too much oversight over too small an industry for a sale to have transpired.

So we have the question supposedly asked, answered. But then Wilson continutes:

In September 2002, however, Niger re-emerged. The British government published a "white paper".... the report cited Iraq's attempts to purchase uranium from an African country.
...in January, President Bush, citing the British dossier, repeated the charges about Iraqi efforts to buy uranium from Africa.

The next day, I reminded a friend at the State Department of my trip and suggested that if the president had been referring to Niger, then his conclusion was not borne out by the facts as I understood them.

Now what facts was he referring to? Wilson himself uses the words "efforts to buy" in this one and only place in the article, and he then follows up with "conclusion was not borne out by the facts that I understood them."

Huh? What had he told the CIA during his debriefing?

The intelligence report based on the former ambassador's trip was disseminated on March 8, 2002....The intelligence report indicated that former Nigerien Prime Minister Ibrahim.....
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 intelligence report also said that "although the meeting took place, Mayaki let the matter drop due to the UN sanctions on Iraq."

The CIA's DO gave the former ambassador's information a grade of "good,"....... 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."

Now. Go back and read Wilson's NYT article. He doesn't mention what he told the CIA. Why? Because it brings the whole thing into a "who do you believe." The Nigerian ex-PM or Wilson's judgement?

And why didn't Wilson do that? I repeat my questions. Was the editorial accurate? Was it unbiased? Did he have an agenda? You can have your opinion. I have mine.

...if he's innocent.

  Another would be the logical fallacy of assuming that just because one person leaked something no one else could have also done it.

  Still another reason, is that the identity of the leaker does not end the inquiry. Not all leaks are illegal. Even knowing who made disclosures does not mean it is established that: (a) the information disclosed was protected information or (b) even it was protected information the disclosure was made with the requisite knowledge and intent for the disclosure to be illegal.

The tenor of the comments around here rises and falls with the temporal proximity of Jeralyn's reminders to behave. After her last admonition about rating the comment and not the commenter I thought things improved. But lately, things seem to have gotten a little out of control.

For example, one frequent commenter invited me to pee (yes, pee) on them. I'm still not sure what that was about, but someone else thought it was a "good metaphor."

I was asked to come out to the CIA and discuss this question of whether Saddam could have, or would have, or did attempt to purchase uranium, significant quantities of uranium, from Niger

Now this is what he said in his NYT editorial:

While I never saw the report, I was told that it referred to a memorandum of agreement that documented the sale of uranium yellowcake -- a form of lightly processed ore -- by Niger to Iraq in the late 1990's. The agency officials asked if I would travel to Niger to check out the story so they could provide a response to the vice president's office.

Notice that in his editorial, he mentions only the sale, the "could have" portion, completely ignoring the "would have or did attempt" part of the summons.

Bad enough?  They made it worse.  They put a picture of the real physical key on their website. A couple of the guys working on the Princeton U. project to hack their machines (to prove they're not secure enough to be used for voting) took a screenshot of the website, went down to the local hardware store and bought some key blanks and files, then worked the blanks.

Voila! The homemade key worked.

Federal Computer Week (never heard of it before) reports on a USMC report from their Center for Lessons Learned, which indicates that Marines in Afghanistan are losing 20 to 40 pounds from lack of nutrition from the MREs they're given to eat.  One lost 60 plus pounds and had to be medically evacuated.

These guys are having to hump (i.e., carry rucksacks and gear) well over half their body weight, in high mountain conditions (5000+ feet altitude, up to 10,000, I'm sure, in spots), for extended periods of time.  

Years ago, a college friend hiked the Appalachian Trail end-to-end.  Even in those relatively civilized, low-altitude surroundings, he went from 220 to about 180 over the six months it took.  And a lot of that was beer weight.  And, just about everyone who goes through Ranger school winds up gaunt by the end (and packs on pounds shortly thereafter, making up).

The nuclear clock is ticking... and time is running out.

Jim accuses Scribe of blaming Bush, even tho Scribe's comment never mentions the CinC.

Scribe's issue is promptly left by the wayside.

I guess you could call that a strategy...So you have no qualms about the thousands of Iraqis that will die because we left?

Now. What would be your long term strategy to contain the emboldened terrorists that will cause, and what is your economic policy to relieve the huge global impact when Iran is driving up the price of oil?

And will you be willing to let Iran takeover the remainder of the ME killing millions of Sunis, and, of course, destroying Israel?