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In that article, I state clearly that "as for the actual memorandum, I never saw it. But news accounts have pointed out that the documents had glaring errors -- they were signed, for example, by officials who were no longer in government -- and were probably forged. (And then there's the fact that Niger formally denied the charges.)"

The first time I actually saw what were represented as the documents was when Andrea Mitchell, the NBC correspondent, handed them to me in an interview on July 21. I was not wearing my glasses and could not read them. I have to this day not read them. I would have absolutely no reason to claim to have done so. My mission was to look into whether such a transaction took place or could take place. It had not and could not. By definition that makes the documents bogus.

Wilson talks again about Andrea Mitchell showing him documents.

BTW, see post #44 with an interview from July 7, 2003 with CNN where Wilson plainly tries to say Cheney wanted more information about Niger based on the "memorandum" that turned out to be forged, hence Wilson being sent on his trip---an impossible timeline and an example of what the committee was getting at when they said Wilson's references to the forged documents in his press statements was at odds with the fact that the forged memo didn't surface until 8 months after Wilson's trip.

I have gone through this piece line by line and while this is Wilson's big chance to rebut his attackers he doesn't do it.

His claim that the Senate Committee is wrong, that his wife didn't have anything to do with his trip to Niger falls rather flat in the face of her memo lauding his qualifications for the job, and the statement that she escorted him to the meeting.

But that is really a minor point.

The major point is that his claim to have refuted the basic charge by Bush that Iraq was "seeking" uranium still falls flat. He continues to depend on the verbal sleight of hand, asserting that there was no transaction when Bush claimed that Iraq "sought", not that Iraq "got".

That Iraq "sought", in actual fact, is not controversial. Their 1999 trade mission to Niger is not a secret, it is not controversial. The CIA claims that Wilson himself reported that an Iraqi "businessman" had approached the prime minister and tried to set up a meeting, but Wilson makes no mention of either this or the trade mission in this letter.

His evidence that they didn't "seek"? That, since they already had uranium, and didn't have a nuclear research program, they had no need to "seek". Thats his evidence, his analysis of their needs based on his opinion of their needs. But this does not refute, and avoids mentioning, the trade mission.

His proof that no uranium transactions took place? First, is his assertion that the French wouldn't do such a thing. Faith can be beautiful, but it isn't evidence, of course. His second proof? He asked the Niger government, and they said no. Again, see the above remark concerning faith.

And his final, iron-clad proof? The CIA couldn't confirm British intel reports. Why couldn't the CIA confirm these reports? Because the CIA is naked in Niger. They have evidently stripped their assets there and are forced to send Wilson, who does nothing at all to investigate the issue, he follows no trucks, he doesn't stake out the port of Cotoneau, he doesn't get the plant accountant drunk, he doesn't burgle plant files. As he says in another interview, Wilson "doesn't do undercover".

He wisely avoids repeating the claim he made in his original op-ed that the IAEA was monitoring the mines, and for that reason no transaction could take place, because it isn't true.

I blog on this on Liberating Iraq blog:

July 17th: AP grudgingly admits Bush was telling the truth and intelligence backs up his claims, and yet in Iraq Uranium Claim Gets Some Support, they still get the story wrong: "It cited various reports, however, that Iraq had sought uranium in Africa. Thus, although Bush cited only British documents that later proved to have been forged, intelligence files clearly contained other evidence of the truth of the claim." WRONG, AP!

Pejman quote the FT's report on the Butler report released in Britain:

Butler's other areas of investigation was the issue of whether Iraq sought to buy uranium from Niger. People with knowledge of the report said Lord Butler has concluded that this claim was reasonable and consistent with the intelligence. ... The Financial Times revealed last week that a key part of the UK's intelligence on the uranium came from a European intelligence service that undertook a three-year surveillance of an alleged clandestine uranium-smuggling operation of which Iraq was a part.

The British intelligence was based on independent sources. Funny, the AP story includes that factoid: The British inquiry said it was generally accepted that Iraqi officials visited Niger in 1999, and there was intelligence from several sources that the visit was to acquire uranium. "Since uranium constitutes almost three-quarters of Niger's exports, the intelligence was credible," the report said.

The bottom line is that Bush's 16 words were correct, he referenced British intelligence, which the Brits stand behind... So how can the AP contradict themselves in their own article?

There is a TON of Wilson debunking material, starting with: The Joe Wilson story timeline from May 2003 to now. Pejmanesque's roundup debunking of Wilson on the Senate intelligence report, he says:

We already know that the Butler inquiry in Britain states that Saddam Hussein's regime did indeed try to buy uranium from Niger. So we have independent verification that validates the famous "sixteen words" in the President's 2003 State of the Union Speech, and invalidates Wilson's claims that there was no attempt by Iraq to purchase uranium from Africa.

Piling on with glee, we have Mark Steyn and JOM on Steyn and Wilson and a Wilson website exposed by instapundit, and now the reverb of Media malfeasance in covering Wilson's tracks: NY Times backpedals yet "Times remains sphinx-like on the Senate report finding" that show Joe Wilson lied.

This aint over: Joe Wilson fires back at Senator Roberts ensuring this will be a partisan slugfest, but he makes a remarkable claim: I never claimed to have "debunked" the allegation that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa. I claimed only that the transaction described in the documents that turned out to be forgeries could not have occurred and did not occur. In other words, his only use during his fifteen minutes of fame was to tell people what we already knew - and ignore that "Bush lied" ... oh wait a second "I did not speak out on the subject until several months after it became evident that what underpinned the assertion in the State of the Union address were those documents" ...

And THAT my friend explains the LIE in the AP report, and shows IMHO that Joe Wilson is still lying. You see, the media has to run interference and somehow link the forged documents to the "British intelligence" claim that Bush made in the 2003 SOTU. In fact, they are not related, nor would Joe Wilson know, since he has no access to British intelligence sources.