As John Hinderaker at The Power Line reminds us, one of the lies that Joe Wilson told in his infamous op-ed in the New York Times was that he was sent to investigate the yellowcake claims in Niger by Vice President Cheney's office. That isn't true. Here's what Wilson wrote:
In February 2002, I was informed by officials at the Central Intelligence Agency that Vice President Dick 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. 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.Hinderaker observes (with my emphasis):
This was another lie by Wilson, as Cheney pointed out at the time, and as the Senate Intelligence Report confirmed. Contrary to false statements made by Wilson and his wife, it was Valerie Plame who suggested her husband for the Niger venture, and the Vice-President's office had nothing to do with it. This is precisely what Karl Rove told Matt Cooper, but the Times demurely fails to quote Cooper's email to that effect.If Karl Rove is the Devil, he is in the details.
As usual, the Times's editorial will sound plausible only to the uninformed.
Why does any of this matter? Because this wasn't just nepotism ---"just" a CIA employee getting her husband an assignment for which he wasn't qualified--- but a scandalous abuse of this Administration by a couple of disaffected partisans who wanted to manufacture their own angle on the question of this war. For fortune? Probably. For fame? You bet your ass.
Oh, and keep reading Hinderaker's post. It's got a juicy surprise on the back end.