Diplomat who blew the whistle on falsified evidence

[muchacho]

When Joseph Wilson got the call from Vice-President Dick Cheney's office asking for assistance, the former diplomat had no qualms.

The request related to a disturbing report from Italian intelligencesuggesting Iraq was buying uranium from Niger and trying to restart its nuclear weapons programme.

In February 2002, the CIA asked Mr Wilson to go to Niger as soon as possible, speak to the contacts he developed there as ambassador between 1976-78, and establish whether the reports were true. "I had been asked to look into whether it was feasible that Niger had entered into an agreement to sell uranium to Iraq," he told The Independent on Sunday.

Mr Wilson, recently retired, was ideal for the job. He knew Niger; he knew Africa from his time on the National Security Council when Bill Clinton was President, and having been chargé d'affaires in Baghdad, he was the last US official to speak to Saddam Hussein.

Having received clearance from the State Department ("I don't do covert, I do discreet.") he left for Niger in March 2002 where he was met by the US ambassador, Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick. Mr Wilson spent just eight days in the capital, Niamey, but he was able to dismiss the claim that Iraq was trying to buy uranium.

Because of how the uranium business in Niger operates, the consortium that runs the mines would have learned of Niger's efforts to mine more uranium than normal and that increase would have been noticed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). There was no such trail and Mr Wilson concluded the documents must have been fake. Having reported to Ms Owens-Kirkpatrick, Mr Wilson returned to Washington, where he was debriefed the same day by the CIA and the next day by the State Department. "My report was very unequivocal," he said.

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http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=422942

[Beetwasher]

1. Once again, they are nailed to the wall

However, I've said that before and they've skated. I'm talking Chimpco. here. Blair's probably done for with this little tid-bit. What a chump. Boy was he played...BIG TIME. His next gut punch will be when they don't come through for him with his job at Carlyle because he's too much of a liberal weenie...