Bush DIDN'T Lie -- Wilson & Plame Did

We've all heard the denunciations of President Bush as a liar by former Ambassador and Clinton appointee Joseph Wilson. He has repeatedly claimed that his report on Iraqi attempts to buy "yellowcake" uranium from Niger disproved the story, and that the administration knew -- or should have known -- that the British report that Bush relied upon in the 2003 State of the Union address was wrong.

The only problem is that Wilson's charges are false. Not only that, but his report to the CIA bolstered the case for most intelligence analysts.

More damning still is the obvious falsehood of his statements that his wife, CIA employee Veronica Plame, had nothing to do with the decision to send him to investigate. According to the Washington Post,

The report states that a CIA official told the Senate committee that Plame "offered up" Wilson's name for the Niger trip, then on Feb. 12, 2002, sent a memo to a deputy chief in the CIA's Directorate of Operations saying her husband "has good relations with both the PM [prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity." The next day, the operations official cabled an overseas officer seeking concurrence with the idea of sending Wilson, the report said.

Wilson also claimed that during his investigation, which mostly consisted of sipping mint tea on verandas with VIPs and government officials from Niger, convinced him that the names and dates were wrong on certain documents later determined to be forgeries. One small problem -- the documents were not in US hands until eight months after the Niger trip, and Wilson had never seen them or been briefed on them.

I guess that just goes to show who the liars are when it comes to national security.