[ScaniaBoy]

Interesting and good work.

There is however one item in your previous time line I think you should adjust or add.

The reasons why the IAEA team so easily could detect the forgeries were described not in el-Baradei's speech in the UN (3 March 03), but in a number of news articles the following days and weeks (for instance CNN 14 March, Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker 31 March etc. )

In Kristof's article "the former African ambassador" actually does not say more than he could have read in a number of media outlets.

Of course there was no way he could have seen these documents on his trip to Niger (unless we are talking about a major conspiracy), but given what is written in Kristof's article it is not possible to claim that Wilson knew more about the documents than he could have, without having had sources inside the CIA.

Now we don't know when Wilson was interviewed by Kristof, but as things stand at the moment it appears that one has to conclude that he could have lied about ever seeing the documents. His statements are not proof that he did see them, since he is not giving information that was unknown at the time.

That's the problems with liars - one never knows when they are lying and when they are telling the truth.

[Wuli]

You are right (did Wilson get his info on the documents from the news), that is clear, although the time from the first descriptive news article is only days after the March 3 announcement by the UN; and the IAEA had to do their work looking at the documents before that. But, Wilson COULD HAVE learned about the "forged" nature of the documents from the news.

Yet, as my new addition points out, the factors that make those documents forgeries could have easily and readily been detected by Valerie Plame's division at the CIA, yet from October 9, 2002 to March 3, 2003 the record is silent; there is no screeming memo from her division, up to Tenet, saying "these documents are forgeries"; at least none that her division or Tenet were willing to divulge to the congressional investigators on the joint intelligence committee.

I do not think that that failure was due to incompetence, and therefore I am of the assumption that, at least within days of October 9-10, 2002 (if not long before), Valerie Plame knew the "forged" nature of the documents as did others at the CIA. I also assume that her and Joe Wilson talked about those documents, at least from the time after they came into the CIA's possession and before March 3, 2003. Therefore, I think he is not lying when he talks to Kristof, the Washington Post or The New Republic concerning what he knows about what makes the documents "forged", I believe he is speaking from knowledge, not news reports.