[Enchante]

Also, it's rarely pointed out that the CIA, including Valerie Plame's vaunted WMD unit, has totally botched virtually every significant development in WMD proliferation for decades. India and Pakistan going nuke, the whole Khan network including Libya and Iran and North Korea, everything about North Korea's nuke progress in the '90s, Iraq being within a year or less of having nukes at the time of the 1991 Gulf War, etc. etc. etc.

The CIA has been a total botch on WMD issues, so there was a lot more reason to be suspicious of than complacent about their pre-2003 assessments of Iraq. This is an important point that is almost never noticed. Every previous major WMD development for decades has been UNDER-estimated, not over-estimated, by our fabled CIA.

[blogblogginaway]

It should also be noted that when Valerie Plame offered up her husband to make the trip she said "THERE'S THIS CRAZY REPORT" about a purported deal for Niger to sell uranium to Iraq. It should also be noted the Senate Intelligence Committee found Wilson had made an earlier trip to Niger in 1999 for the CIA, also at his wife's suggestion.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39834-2004Jul9.html

[GOPJ]

Insightful:

Also, it's rarely pointed out that the CIA, including Valerie Plame's vaunted WMD unit, has totally botched virtually every significant development in WMD proliferation for decades. India and Pakistan going nuke, the whole Khan network including Libya and Iran and North Korea, everything about North Korea's nuke progress in the '90s, Iraq being within a year or less of having nukes at the time of the 1991 Gulf War, etc. etc. etc.

The CIA has been a total botch on WMD issues, so there was a lot more reason to be suspicious of than complacent about their pre-2003 assessments of Iraq.