Incredibly, some are defending Wilson

Some in the blogosphere are actually defending Wilson, trying to say that he didn't lie. This flies in the face of the facts as set forth in the SICR (Senate Intelligence Committee Report). Some have argued that all the intelligence reports were based upon the forged Italian document.

Let's look at the sequence of events as set forth in the report.
1) Page 36 - Initial reports came in to the CIA on October 15, 2001. The report states that the report came "from a foreign government service".
2) Page 37 - On November 20,2001, the Director General of Niger's French-led consortium said "there was no possibility" that any uranium had been diverted. This was good enough for INR, but not for the CIA.
3) Page 37 - On February 5, 2002 the CIA issued a second report and cited the source as a "foreign government service". This report provided the "verbatim text" of the agreement between Niger and Iraq. This report indicated that Iraq and Niger had signed an agreement to ship 500 tons of yellowcake per year.
4) Page 38 - The CIA was "more impressed" with the detail of the second report, but INR continued to doubt the accuracy because they didn't believe Niger would sell to Iraq. (Notice how they don't base their opinions on any facts.) The CIA was asked to submit the source to a polygraph, but the CIA declined saying the report was from a "very credible source".
5) At that time, analysts pointed out that the report matched reporting from 1999 that showed an Algerian businessman, "Baraka", tried to arrange a trip to Niger and "other African countries" for the Iraqi Ambassador to the Vatican, Wissam al-Zahawi.
6) On February 12, 2002, Valerie Plame, the wife of Joseph Wilson, "suggested his name for the trip" in a memorandum where she wrote "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." This is in direct contradiction to both Wilson's public statements and his book. (See my previous posts with regard to the exact quote.) LIE #1
7) Wilson had previously made a trip to Niger (in 1999) on the CIA's behalf. The report states "The former ambassador was selected for the 1999 trip after his wife mentioned to her supervisors that her husband was planning a business trip to Niger in the near future and might be willing to use his contacts in the region". So Wilson had already been to Niger once before investigating this issue after his wife had suggested him. He didn't "uncover any information" on that trip, but one has to assume it was to follow up on the report of the entreaties of "Baraka" on behalf of the Iraqi ambassador.
8) Page 40 - On February 19,2002 a meeting took place to discuss Wilson's trip to Niger. According to an INR analyst, the meeting was "apparently convened by [Wilson's] wife who had the idea to dispatch [him] to use his contacts to sort out the Iraq-Niger uranium issue." Ms. Plame states that she attended the meeting but left after introducing her husband. (Again, this corroborates that Wilson lied about his wife's involvement.)
9) Page 42 - Wilson arrive in Niger on February 26, 2002. US Ambassador Owens-Kirkpatrick reported that Wilson said "he had reached the same conclusions that the embassy had reached, that it was highly unlikely that anything was going on."
10) Page 43 - Wilson was debriefed in his own home, with his wife present (acting as a hostess) and a report was generated as a result. The report indicated that in June 1999 a "businessman" approached Niger about "expanding commercial relations" with Iraq, and the Nigerian minister understood that to mean "uranium yellowcake sales." If nothing else, this proves that Iraq was at least probing the possibility of purchasing uranium in Africa. This is Wilson's second lie. He has publicly stated that there was nothing to the story, yet his own debriefing debunks that notion entirely. LIE #2
11) Wilson also reported a meeting with "an Iraqi delegation" and the Nigerian minister.
12) Page 44 - When Wilson met with the SIC, he indicated that the CIA had told him there were "documents pertaining to the alleged Iraq-Niger uranium transaction and that the source of the information was the [blanked out] intelligence service. However, the CIA refutes that stating that Wilson was never shown any information about the sources or details of the alleged transaction and
13) Page 45 - there were no documents circulating. All the information they had at that time was from other intelligence sources. This clearly refutes the allegation that the intelligence reports were based upon the forged Italian document.
14) Wilson then admitted to the SIC that he was the source of a Washington Post article discussing the forged document. When the "Committee Staff asked how the former ambassador could have come to the conclusion that the 'dates were wrong and the names were wrong' when he had never seeen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports, Wilson said that he "may have mispoken" to the reporter when he said he concluded the documents were 'forged'." LIE #3

By this time, Wilson has no credibility left. He lied about his wife's involvement. He lied about what he reported to the CIA. He lied about the forged Italian documents.

15) Page 47 - On March 25,2002, the CIA issued a third and final report from "the same [foreign] government service" stating that the report indicted a 2000 agreement between Niger and Iraq to deliver 500 tons of uranium a year. This is after Wilson's trip to Niger, in which he stated publicly that there was "nothing" to the story, while reporting something different to the CIA.
16) During this same period of time, the CIA Iraqi analyst indicated that there were "several other intelligence reports of Iraqi interest in uranium from other countries in Africa" including the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Somalia.
17) Page 50 - the British issued a white paper on September 24, 2002 stating that "there is intelligence that Iraq has sought the supply of significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
18) Page 57 - On October 9, 2002 an Italian journalist (not their intelligence service) provided the US Embassy in Rome with copies of documents purporting to show the Iraq-Niger uranium deal. These documents were later discovered to be forged.
19) Page 59 - On November 25,2002 the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs Director for Nonproliferation said that France had information about Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Niger. (This would seem to indicate that the "foreign intelligence service" referenced in previous reports was not the French.)
20) Page 66 - In the State of the Union speech, on January 28, 2003, the President stated that "the British government has learned that Sadaam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." (Note that there was no mention of Niger nor of any specific amounts.) At this point, it was still not known that the Italian documents were forged, but they were irrelevant to the story line anyway.
21) Page 69 - On March 3, 2003, the IAEA provided the US with an analysis that the Italian documents were forgeries. On March 4, 2003 the US learned that the French had based their information about the Iraq-Niger story on the forged documents (but not the British.)

This should settle the matter once and for all. Wilson lied on several different occasions. President Bush never even mentioned Niger in his SOU speech, and the Congo and Somalia were likely suspects as well at that time. And the CIA's analysis was not based soley on the forged documents (if at all!)