Yellowcake to 'Plamegate'
By Peter Grier | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
How mishandled intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war led to an indictment in the White House.
WASHINGTON – The first time the State Department intelligence analyst saw the documents he thought there was something weird about them.
This is the story of how those words came to be, and how their effect rippled through the years, ultimately resulting in the criminal indictment of a high administration official, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Culled primarily from US government reports and congressional testimony, it deals with nuclear materials, foreign spies, and a secret trip to the finest refueling stop in Africa. It centers on a peculiar set of documents - provenance as yet unknown - that a presidential inquiry three years later found to be "transparently forged."
Much about the affair remains to be discovered. But one thing now seems clear: If US intelligence agencies had spent more time studying the evidence in their possession, the president might never had said those words. Scooter Libby probably would be in his White House office today.
Lots more, including timeline:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1115/p01s04-uspo.html