Jacqueline, (his second wife), was a French diplomat and may have provided the connections for Wilson to see the forged documents that were supplied by the French through the Italians. In other words it is possible that Wilson knew that the docs were forged because he was privy to the information that French wanted to discredit the British info on Saddam shopping for yellowcake and that Wilson's objective was the same. The French just happen to manage the yellowcake production in Niger.
IOW, he didn't lie...he saw them. It has been reported that she was a "cultural counselor" for the French Embassy, which some say is code for she was doing undercover work.
And Fedora has contributed this:
French intelligence soon began a campaign to discredit the US case for war against Iraq. In 1999, French intelligence had begun investigating the security of uranium supplies in Niger, where uranium production was controlled by a consortium led by the French mining company COGEMA, a division of the French state-owned nuclear energy firm AREVA. At that time, Italian businessman Rocco Martino provided French intelligence with genuine documents revealing that Iraq was planning to expand trade with Niger. French intelligence took an interest in the documents and asked Martino to provide more information. In 2000 he used a contact in the Nigerian embassy in Rome to provide French intelligence with documents purporting that Iraq had purchased uranium from Niger. These documents were later exposed as forgeries;
< snip >
Since it is now also known that French intelligence was trying to push Martino’s forgeries on US and British intelligence, as simultaneously the Democratic National Committee was planning to discredit President Bush’s Iraq policy by accusing his administration of manufacturing evidence against Hussein’s regime, heightened suspicion is cast on Wilson’s use of the Niger investigation to discredit the Bush administration’s case for war.
We're still missing the forger for Rathergate. Is forgery in or something?
There's an old movie with Vincent Price. He becomes a monk to get into an archives to alter a record. He has access to the original ink and parchment, changes the pages in the original archive and returns to America with his duplicate. His messup was that the person he was promoting as this "owner" of Arizona has a hidden past.
Who the hell is forging stuff to bring down the Whitehouse??
"It has been reported that she was a "cultural counselor" for the French Embassy, which some say is code for she was doing undercover work."
Well at the very least it is apparent that Mr Wilson is attracted to women with "interesting" careers. Anymore wives out there? I read where he indicated he had "too many wives to run for public office".
WOW! What an extensive resource .. and what a lot of work. thank you, Fedora.