[podkane]

Someone lower down in the CIA cooked up this trip; my guess is Plame's boss (who conveniently resigned after the story broke)at the instigation of Plame.

If this was lower down in the CIA, did it occur to anyone that Niger may have had a motivation to HIDE the fact that it had dealings (or plans to deal) with Iraq? It seems like there is a lot of credulence in the CIA...

[Miss Marple]

Well, you are assuming Plame's group (charged with looking for WMD evidence) actually wanted to find any. Since it is obvious that at least two people in that group were democrats (Plame and her boss, a Clinton guy) it is quite possible that they were simply going through the motions.

It is also possible that Wilson went to Niger not to find out about the uranium, but to WARN them that they were under suspicion.

There are subversives in the CIA, in case you weren't aware of this. Wilson was on Kerry's campaign committee. This was not an effort to find out the truth about the Niger uranium; of that I am certain.