[piasa]

February 6, 2003: Joe Wilson wrote an editorial for the Los Angeles Times, A 'Big Cat' With Nothing to Lose, in which he claimed we should not attack Saddam Hussein because he will use his weapons of mass destruction on our troops and give them to terrorists.

JANUARY 2003 : (WAS WILSON JULY 6, 2003 NY TIMES OP-ED ON NIGER & URANIUM SUPPOSED TO BE RELEASED MUCH EARLIER, IN EARLY JAN 2003 OR IS THIS JUST A SLIP OF THE TONGUE BY RAY MCGOVERN? --see VIPS)
RAY MCGOVERN : "Now why did the White House do that? Well, the conventional wisdom is they really hated Joe Wilson. Why did they hate Joe Wilson? Well, because in reporting in The New York Times in his famous op-ed in early January of 2003, he reported that there was no legitimate report about Iraq seeking uranium in Niger for lots of reasons" -------- The BRAD SHOW On the Air! TRANSCRIPT: Ray McGovern Interview 6/11/05, http://bradblog.com/BradShow/Transcripts/RayMcGovern_061105.htm

[Sam Hill]

I suspect that was a slip of the tongue or a misprint.

Indeed, before the war, both McGovern and Wilson had no doubts in their minds that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction:

Rumsfeld Heckler Believed Saddam Had WMDs | Sweetness & Light
http://www.sweetness-light.com/archive/rumsfeld-heckler-believed-saddam-had-wmds