[Sinner]

Originally Posted by theknife

the money quote, from one of the 12 people who had the whole thing layed out for them in minute detail:

Fallguy For Joseph C. Wilson IV

Former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, dispatched by the CIA in February 2002 to investigate reports that Iraq sought to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program with uranium from Africa, was specifically recommended for the mission by his wife, a CIA employee, contrary to what he has said publicly.

In other words, he lied about how he came to be in Niger in the first place, and his wife was further complicit in the lie.

Wilson's assertions -- both about what he found in Niger and what the Bush administration did with the information -- were undermined yesterday in a bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report.

The panel found that Wilson's report, rather than debunking intelligence about purported uranium sales to Iraq, as he has said, bolstered the case for most intelligence analysts. And contrary to Wilson's assertions and even the government's previous statements, the CIA did not tell the White House it had qualms about the reliability of the Africa intelligence that made its way into 16 fateful words in President Bush's January 2003 State of the Union address.

In other words, he lied about the conclusions of his own report, and further lied about the information that was given to President Bush on the matter.

The report said Plame told committee staffers that she relayed the CIA's request to her husband, saying, "there's this crazy report" about a purported deal for Niger to sell uranium to Iraq. The committee found Wilson had made an earlier trip to Niger in 1999 for the CIA, also at his wife's suggestion.

In other words, Plame had already made up her mind about the truthfulness of the report, and dispatched her husband to Niger not to investigate, but specifically to come back with debunking evidence. From the committee's report, the information Wilson returned with actually strengthened the administration's case, so he just lied about what its conclusions were to the press.

In the most stunning lie of all, the committee caught Wilson in a lie of "Christmas in Cambodia Under Nixon in '68" proportions:

The report also said Wilson provided misleading information to The Washington Post last June. He said then that he concluded the Niger intelligence was based on documents that had clearly been forged because "the dates were wrong and the names were wrong."

"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 seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports," the Senate panel said. Wilson told the panel he may have been confused and may have "misspoken" to reporters. The documents -- purported sales agreements between Niger and Iraq -- were not in U.S. hands until eight months after Wilson made his trip to Niger.

Whooops.

Indeed, Wilson's mendacity was so stunning that even the "Vast Right Wing Conspirators" at the Washington Post ultimately concluded that whoever leaked Plame's name was ultimately doing so to shed light on the fact that Wilson had no business being in Niger in the first place, and that a political agenda drove him there - rather than out of a vindictive desire to exact retribution on Wilson for exposing the truth:

The report may bolster the rationale that administration officials provided the information not to intentionally expose an undercover CIA employee, but to call into question Wilson's bona fides as an investigator into trafficking of weapons of mass destruction.

So let's review - Wilson lied about how he got to Niger, he lied about seeing a report that didn't even exist at the time, he lied about the conclusions of his own report(!), he lied about what the administration had been told, and his wife, Valerie Plame, specifically sent him on a mission to intentionally debunk a claim, not to find facts or perform inspections. I'd say the WaPo's conclusion is pretty sound on this one.

When the White House learned that a serial liar within their administration was being given op-ed space in the New York Times, and had the friendly ear of numerous journalists, in order to specifically contest the official administration policy, it is apparent that the Vice President asked a question that would have occurred to any halfway intelligent individual: "Who the heck is this Joe Wilson who is [among other things] claiming that I've seen a document which I haven't?" And thus set in motion a chain of events which led to today's conviction of Scooter Libby.