[cyncooper]

I was slightly off in my representations of the forged document timeline. I just found a CNN article about it and I was thinking of our intelligence agencies not looking at them until after the SOTU speech. That is correct--they didn't until February 2003 before turning them over to the UN who then announced the findings of forgery.

The October 2002 date was indeed the US getting them--at the embassy in Italy. I do see this article cites late 2001 which would indeed predate the Wilson trip, as the first time the documents surfaced:

FBI looking into forged Iraq-Niger documents

July 16, 2003

excerpt:

The documents, according to officials, were first provided to Italian intelligence in late 2001. The United States did not gain possession of them until nearly a year later, in October 2002, when a journalist turned them over to the U.S. Embassy in Rome, U.S. officials said.

Sources told CNN the embassy passed them on to the CIA station chief in Rome and to officials at the State Department. A senior State Department official and another senior administration official told CNN the department did its own reporting on the documents and offered the documents to all the relevant agencies.

Government officials say CIA headquarters received the documents in February 2003, which was after the January State of the Union address in which President Bush claimed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein sought to buy uranium from Africa.

~snip~

I will again place into consideration that the Wilsons were involved in the forgeries for a nefarious purpose.

[piasa]

Just a bit of trivia... there was another forgery going around in 2003:

JULY 16, 2003 : ("FORGED" LETTER-TO-THE-EDITOR SENT TO WASHINGTON TIMES FROM PERSON CLAIMING TO BE US SENIOR DIPLOMAT MINKES)

[piasa]

I think Italian intelligence denied having anything to do with the docs; the tale came from a reporter in Italy who claimed she took them to the US embassy.

But the source is still up in the air, apparently...

APRIL 9, 2003 : (NIGERFLAP : FORGED DOCS FROM FRANCE?) Western intelligence officials outlined the key developments in interviews here yesterday, even as Iraqis in Baghdad and Basra, finally feeling free of Saddam Hussein's 25-year reign, were cheering U.S. and British troops as liberators. Among the crucial factors the intelligence officials cited in explaining the remarkable 21-day path to the regime's seeming demise: (clip)...article continues to quote Intelligence officials with the final paragraph stating: The intelligence officials offered a tantalizing coda for conspiracy-mongers. They said the "crude forgery" received by U.N. weapons inspectors suggesting the Iraqis were trying to buy uranium from Niger as part of their nuclear program was originally put in intelligence channels by France. The officials wouldn't speculate on French motives. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A1514-2003Apr9&notFound=true

[Wolfstar]

I will again place into consideration that the Wilsons were involved in the forgeries for a nefarious purpose.

Cyncooper, you may very well be right. I hope the grand jury's scope is wider than just that Plame-name leak question. Otherwise we'll probably never get to the truth.