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The exact point of making poor quality forgeries is to use them to tarnish any other evidence.

British intelligence still stands by their charge that Saddam tried to acquire uranium in Africa, and that their evidence is not related to the forgeries. However, that charge has been completely obscured by said forgeries. Therefore we see just how useful creating these forgeries was for the French government.

Had the INC or some pro-war group been behind them, as you reference, why not make them much more believable, and at least not make them trivially easy for the leader of the anti-war coalition to disprove?

All the arrows point to the same place...France. Considering the fact that at the same time France was attempting to bribe other countries to oppose us in the UN, and threatening would-be members of the European Union from assisting us, this kind of treachery is hardly out of place.

As for Wilson, well, perhaps he could have actually done an investigation, which he did not, as, again, he admitted. Sending a noted anti-war activist with no background in this sort of investigation, and ties to a government opposed to American intervention would be at a minimum criminal negligence by whoever sent him. This of course presumes he was sent with any sort of good intent of course.

As we now know, with Wilson claiming he has no idea who sent him...and could not identify the person if he had too...combined with his wife's boss's (probable) forced retirement he was sent on Plame's recommendation. It should be pointed out that originally he did not deny this...

She and Wilson should probably be facing charges of high treason, though the media has insulated them unfortunately, as part of their broad anti-war effort.

What Joe Wilson said or doesn't affect the Niger documents one way or the other.

As far as I know, the French have made no comment on the Niger documents one way or the other. They weren't the ones who publicized the documents so it's a little difficult to see how they would have profited one way or the other.

If they had exposed the evidence as cheap forgery one would question why they did, and perhaps arrive at your conclusion. But they didn't. As far as I know they've made no comment at all

All that needed to be done to prevent the damage done by these forgeries was to just ignore them. After all, they were buried for two years before they came to public attention.

The only reason they became part of the public debate is because they were used by the US and Britain as evidence of Iraq's desire to build a nuclear weapon.

What ever else, I doubt the French forced the US and Britain to use these documents.