[popdonnelly]

Actually, you don't need a big conspiracy at the CIA to damage an Administration. What you need are some disgruntled CIA employees, their contacts on the outside who are no longer with the Agency, and a few sympathetic journalists. Which I think is close to the truth in the Wilson case.

[Steve_Seattle]

"Actually, you don't need a big conspiracy at the CIA to damage an Administration. What you need are some disgruntled CIA employees, their contacts on the outside who are no longer with the Agency, and a few sympathetic journalists. Which I think is close to the truth in the Wilson case."

I don't think this was a set-up from the very start, i.e., I don't think Wilson went to Niger with the express purpose of using it to undermine Bush. I think it's more likely that he was mainly going there to pursue private business contacts, and maybe his wife saw that adding in the bogus "investigation" would be a way to kill two birds with one stone - reply to Cheney's request for Niger info "on the cheap," and have the CIA pick up the tab for Wilson's trip. So Wilson went to Niger, made his half-assed investigation, was briefed, and the report died in the bowels of the CIA, never even getting back to Cheney.

That might have ended it, but - a year later - the missing WMD's became a political issue, Wilson joined the Kerry camp, and they suddenly saw this as an opportunity to make political trouble for Bush. So Wilson went to sympathetic reporters with a story that kept changing. Emboldened, he then went public, and when his wife's name was mentioned by Novak, someone in the Kerry camp - or perhaps Cooper or some other journalist friendly to Wilson - had the bright idea of spinning the "outing" story, and the media - always dreaming of another Watergate - eagerly bought it. Then some disgruntled CIA hands - present and former - joined in for both anti-Bush and CYA motives.