See post #63.
French Intel was investigating reports of uranium smuggling in Niger, and obtained documents that indicated it was happening. They asked their agent to obtain more documents, which he did with the aid of the Niger embassy. The new documents, though, were obvious forgeries, using signatures of people no longer in office. Obviously, the embassy officials would know who was and wasn't in office in Niger, as would French Intel for that matter.
The fake documents were passed to CIA. When, later, Bush mentioned uranium smuggling, the French and Wilson both announced that his comment was based on forged documents, forged documents that we know were commissioned and passed to us by the French and by Niger embassy people.
How would Wilson know about the fake documents, which were in CIA control?
This should smell to anyone like a setup.
Of course, there is more, in the fact that Iraq really had made overtures to the Niger government concerning uranium, and furthermore, this was no secret at all. Wilson knew it, but left it out of his public statements.
So the French (and perhaps CIA itself) used fake documents to discredit a story that was, after all, true. Iraq really had tried to obtain uranium from Niger. And, furthermore, when Libya "surrendered" after the Iraq war, and gave up its nuclear program, we found that its uranium had come, under the table, from Niger. Meaning that Niger and France were indeed involved in illicit uranium smuggling.
Which means the original French investigation of the affair was not for the purpose of uncovering it, but for the purpose of uncovering leaks and stopping them. Wilson's trip to Niger was part of this operation.
Bush's SOTU speech was crystal clear: "reports that Iraq HAD SOUGHT yellow cake uraniium" .. he never said the deal was done.