[lepton]

Frankly, I don't trust the assessment of a guy who spent about a week poolside drinking sweet mint tea, talking to a bunch of government officials who if they know what's good for them would never admit to dealing with Saddam.

True as well. My point though is beyond all of this, Wilson was playing word games.

[Steve_Seattle]

I question how many of these "dozens" of "officials" Wilson actually talked to, and at what length. The whole idea of the trip was lame-brained; what government official in Niger is going to admit, to a man such as Wilson with no offical standing, and with no compelling reason to do so, that his country was engaged in illegal uranium transactions? How could anyone possibly think that Wilson could get any legitimate information by making this trip? The whole trip was a charade, either to benefit Wilson's personal business interests on other matters, or to embarrass the Bush administration by providing a superficial and shallow debunking of the yellow-cake story. .