To me, this looks like Cheney is being framed. He's being falsely accused of something that didn't happen. Knowledge is being attributed to him about the falsity of these documents, that he certainly couldn't have gotten from Wilson.
well, then its time to fight back don't you think? expose the forged documents as being planted to discredit what was otherwise a true story - and find out if that is in any way connected to some rogue operation inside the CIA. in politics, you are either on offense, or you are losing.
Yes, this is definitely all about Cheney and the neocons. It's an organized disinformation campaign cooked up by Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, VIPS, to make sure Cheney and the neocons wouldn't be back at the White House. It's a very pro-Palestinian group of people who feel Cheney and friends orchestrated the Iraq war to secure Israel.
All the quotes coming out in the past three years from former intelligence professionals from various agencies--all the same people. The Wilsons are associated with that group. He started by doing what everyone else in the group was doing--providing anonymous sourcing for quotes alleging cooked intelligence and pressure from the VP to cook it.
The SOTU claim was never based on the Niger documents. But the administration was in a tough spot to defend itself because it was based on intelligence they weren't supposed to have seen--intelligence held by the UK from a third party that wouldn't give authorization for us to see it. Supposedly, we did see it, that's what the claim was based on, but we couldn't say so when Wilson came out with his Niger op-ed.