" Joe Wilson (and now the wife as well) are rapidly becoming the new liberal icons of whistle-blowing virtue"
That's too strong, I think. Does anybody really think that Wilson has been straightforward in spinning the situation or that his motivation has been what's good for the U.S. in speaking tour? From the moment he went public his role has been political.
On the other hand it looks like he was factually correct that we did not evidence of Iraq attempting to buy Uranium from Niger - but even he admits that it might have happened.
The bottom line is we don't have evidence of WMD justification for entering the war and the sooner we de-focus on WMD's or terrorism justifying the war and focus on the humanitarian reasons for the war and reality that we are there and cannot afford to leave prematurely the better off we will be.
Actually, Iraqi trade contacts with Niger are public information that even Wilson has acknowledged. As others have noted, Iraq was after chickpeas, goats, or uranium. Take your pick.
Wilson never mentions those trade contacts unless pressed, because they don't fit his overall case, which is that France didn't, wouldn't, couldn't, deal in contraband uranium.
It would be interesting to know where Libya got its yellow-cake for its nuclear program.