Wilson and Plame
Retired ambassador Joseph C. Wilson wrote a critical op-ed in The New York Times in which he explained the nature of the documents and the government's prior knowledge of their unreliability for use in a case for war. Shortly after Wilson's op-ed, in a column by Robert Novak, in pondering why a State Dept employee was dispatched rather than a trained CIA agent, the identity of Wilson's wife, CIA analyst Valerie Plame, was revealed. The Senate Intelligence Committee report and other sources confirm that Plame "offered his name up" to her superiors.
The actual words President Bush spoke: "The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" suggests that his source was British intelligence and not the forged documents.
However, George Tenet has admitted that making the claim was a mistake, stating, "The president had every reason to believe that the text presented to him was sound. These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the president."
Read more about this topic: Niger Uranium Forgeries
Famous quotes containing the word wilson:
“The rule for every man is, not to depend on the education which other men have prepared for him,—not even to consent to it; but to strive to see things as they are, and to be himself as he is. Defeat lies in self-surrender.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)