A while back, somebody in government had a stupid idea - let’s send ex-diplomat Joseph Wilson on a mission.

Later, we found out it might have been Valerie Plame’s idea to send him, because he was married to her. We know this, because of a column by Robert Novak, which was easily verified by Wilson’s online bio and a quick call to the CIA.

Wilson later admitted he was actually on a much different mission than the one he was asked to accept: “Neo-conservatives and religious conservatives have hijacked this administration, and I consider myself on a personal mission to destroy both.”

Not surprisingly, Wilson was unable to verify the intelligence that prompted his trip to Niger. Wilson “spent the next eight days drinking sweet mint tea” and he said it “did not take long to conclude” that a transaction had not taken place involving uranium and Iraq. Sure, a Niger official confessed that Iraq’s former information minister, Mohamed Sayeed al-Sahaf, wanted to discuss trade, but it was certainly not for anything that could be used for Saddam’s illegal WMD programs.

Without the luxury of independent verification, President Bush in his State of the Union address cited a British government dossier concluding that Iraq had sought to buy uranium from Niger. The English government stood behind that intelligence, while Bush was accused of lying in America.

However,

European intelligence officers have now revealed that three years before the fake documents became public, human and electronic intelligence sources from a number of countries picked up repeated discussion of an illicit trade in uranium from Niger. One of the customers discussed by the traders was Iraq.

… three European intelligence services were aware of possible illicit trade in uranium from Niger between 1999 and 2001. Human intelligence gathered in Italy and Africa more than three years before the Iraq war had shown Niger officials referring to possible illicit uranium deals with at least five countries, including Iraq.

This intelligence provided clues about plans by Libya and Iran to develop their undeclared nuclear programmes. Niger officials were also discussing sales to North Korea and China of uranium ore or the “yellow cake” refined from it: the raw materials that can be progressively enriched to make nuclear bombs.

More here.