IT'S CAKE, PART OF THE OIL-FOR-FOOD PROGRAM...

A War on Wilson?: Inside the Bush Administration's feud with the diplomat who poured cold water on the Iraq-uranium connection (MATTHEW COOPER, MASSIMO CALABRESI AND JOHN F. DICKERSON, July 17, 2003, TIME)

Government officials are not only privately disputing the genesis of Wilson's trip, but publicly contesting what he found. Last week Bush Administration officials said that Wilson's report reinforced the president's claim that Iraq had sought uranium from Africa. They say that when Wilson returned from Africa in Feb. 2002, he included in his report to the CIA an encounter with a former Nigerien government official who told him that Iraq had approached him in June 1999, expressing interest in expanding commercial relations between Iraq and Niger. The Administration claims Wilson reported that the former Nigerien official interpreted the overture as an attempt to discuss uranium sales.

"This is in Wilson's report back to the CIA," White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer told reporters last week, a few days before he left his post to join the private sector. "Wilson's own report, the very man who was on television saying Niger denies it...reports himself that officials in Niger said that Iraq was seeking to contact officials in Niger about sales."

Wilson tells the story differently and in a crucial respect. He says the official in question was contacted by an Algerian-Nigerien intermediary who inquired if the official would meet with an Iraqi about "commercial" sales--an offer he declined.

Commercial sales of what, if not uranium? And wasn't Iraq under a UN embargo at the time? Posted by Orrin Judd at July 18, 2003 12:14 AM