http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/news/2003/intell-030711-cia01.htm
There is a sentence in the second paragraph that makes Wilson out to be suspect about his statement of seeing the forged documents.
"There was no mention in the report of forged documents -- or any suggestion of the existence of documents at all."
It's a good read of the CIA taking the blame for getting the 16 words wrong in the SOTU Address 2003 or a refresher of the events if you've seen this before. The published date was 11 July 2003.
In case you’d like to read the State of The Union Address for yourself, please go here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20030128-19.html
Wilson’s original article in NYT is here: http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0706-02.htm
He had this to say; (As for the actual memorandum, I never saw it. But news accounts have pointed out that the documents had glaring errors — they were signed, for example, by officials who were no longer in government — and were probably forged. And then there's the fact that Niger formally denied the charges.)
Here's Novak's original article in Townhall: http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/robertnovak/2003/07/14/160881.html
In it, he says this: "Wilson's mission was created after an early 2002 report by the Italian intelligence service about attempted uranium purchases from Niger, derived from forged documents prepared by what the CIA calls a "con man."
He outed Valerie in this statement here; Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him. "I will not answer any question about my wife," Wilson told me.
He goes further to say this: All this was forgotten until reporter Walter Pincus revealed in the Washington Post June 12 that an unnamed retired diplomat had given the CIA a negative report.
Here is the original post by Walter Pincus: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A46957-2003Jun11¬Found=true
Pincus had this to say: After returning to the United States, the envoy reported to the CIA that the uranium-purchase story was false, the sources said. Among the [envoy's conclusions] was that the documents may have been forged because the "dates were wrong and the names were wrong," the former U.S. government official said.my emphasis added (did Walter intend to say this of the envoy or was he overreaching?)
continues…However, the CIA did not include details of the former ambassador's report and his identity as the source, which would have added to the credibility of his findings, in its intelligence reports that were shared with other government agencies. Instead, the CIA only said that Niger government officials had denied the attempted deal had taken place, a senior administration said.
Novak then comes back with another article addressing his first one and the furor it caused here: http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/robertnovak/2003/10/01/168398.html
Novak goes on to say this: The leak now under Justice Department investigation is described by former Ambassador Wilson and critics of President Bush's Iraq policy as a reprehensible effort to silence them. To protect my own integrity and credibility, I would like to stress three points. First, I did not receive a planned leak. Second, the CIA never warned me that the disclosure of Wilson's wife working at the agency would endanger her or anybody else. Third, it was not much of a secret.
He goes on to say this: During a long conversation with a senior administration official, I asked why Wilson was assigned the mission to Niger. He said Wilson had been sent by the CIA's counterproliferation section at the suggestion of one of its employees, his wife. It was an offhand revelation from this official, [who is no partisan gunslinger.]
my emphasis added (many take this statement to mean George Tenet) continues... When I called another official for confirmation, he said: "Oh, you know about it." The published report that somebody in the White House failed to plant this story with six reporters and finally found me as a willing pawn is simply untrue.
On July 12, 2004, Clifford D. May wrote a nice piece titled: Our Man in Niger seen here: http://www.nationalreview.com/may/may200407121105.asp In it, he writes this gem: The Senate report says fairly bluntly that Wilson lied to the media. Schmidt notes that the panel found that, "Wilson provided misleading information to the Washington Post last June. He said then that he concluded the Niger intelligence was based on a document that had clearly been forged because 'the dates were wrong and the names were wrong.'"
The problem is Wilson "had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports," the Senate panel discovered. Schmidt notes: "The documents — purported sales agreements between Niger and Iraq — were not in U.S. hands until eight months after Wilson made his trip to Niger."
How the hell did Wilson know anything about any documents?
The problem is Wilson "had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports," the Senate panel discovered. Schmidt notes: "The documents — purported sales agreements between Niger and Iraq — were not in U.S. hands until eight months after Wilson made his trip to Niger."
How the hell did Wilson know anything about any documents?"
This has been my question all along. (I need to go back and read Congressman BillyBob's post again.)
Jen