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My criticism of Wilson is he's overblown the role he played and his "findings" as if they were the end-all and be-all of the uranium procurement question.

there is every possibility you are correct about this.

In Tenet's Statement he says:

In an effort to inquire about certain reports involving Niger, CIA's counter-proliferation experts, on their own initiative, asked an individual...

wilson had said this (from http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/941956/posts):

"In February 2002, I was informed by officials at the Central Intelligence Agency that Vice President Dick Cheney's office had questions about a particular intelligence report."

okay, so the vice president did not directly request that wilson be sent, but it seems it was his inquiries that led to wilson being sent (assuming wilson's statement is accurate). what difference does it really make?

what difference does it really make?

The difference is Wilson stated on the record that Cheney would know the result of his tea-sipping trip (so what) and therefore "knew" the uranium story was bogus (which it has not been determined to be despite Wilson's claims).

However, Tenet says Wilson's report was not conclusive and the VP was NOT briefed on it.

See?

Wilson claims he went to Niger in 2002 and acts as if his inability to determine any trade taking place puts the end to the question.

Here is Tenet's version:

Because this report, in our view, did not resolve whether Iraq was or was not seeking uranium from abroad, it was given a normal and wide distribution, but we did not brief it to the president, vice president or other senior administration officials. We also had to consider that the former Nigerian officials knew that what they were saying would reach the U.S. government and that this might have influenced what they said.

I hope you see by now Jethro, that I am absolutely correct in my original assessment of Wilson.