As far as I know it is true. Your supporting link is just Wilson's speech.
But I'll use that to talk about a point which is still bothering me. Wilson says he was sent to check on a "memorandum of understanding";
(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.)
Novak says this was the Italian report...but the CIA didn't receive that report until 10 months after Wilson's mission. Hersh says there were TWO Italian reports, the second about the forgeries and the first about a reported 1999 mission to Niger by an Iraqi official seeking to expand trade. Now my first thought was that Wilson had also confused the first and second reports when he wrote his article...but the Senate Intelligence Committee also confirms that Cheney's office asked the CIA to check on a "memorandum of agreement". A memorandum of agreement or understanding is not a report of an official seeking to expand trade. Further the Senate Committee makes it very clear - and Wilson also does - that the CIA made it a point NOT to tell Wilson what exactly they had in their possession and what it said. VERY SUSPICIOUS. Even stranger everyone knew that Wilson's wife had seen the documents because she'd commented that it was a crazy piece of crap. It's reasonable to assume that Wilson also knew EXACTLY what he was being asked to investigate. But he can't say because he wasn't cleared to see them, his wife can't say because she was cleared to see them, and the VEEP and the Senate Committee refuse to say. I say the whole thing stinks to high heaven.
As far as I know it is true. Your supporting link is just Wilson's speech.
True. I gave you the link to his article because I thought it important. In his piece he states that the IAEA was monitoring the mines, and that the idea that France and Niger were doing contraband business was very unlikely. My IAEA link comes later.
http://washingtontimes.com/world/20031001-101113-2642r.htm
Here it is pretty plain that IAEA was not in the country. I have seen other articles that go into detail concerning efforts to get legislation in place that would allow it, and so forth, but this article tells the tale pretty well.