UPDATE III:

Too many posts to keep track of! One thing we did post on was how the Wilson trip in 2002 was handled in a way to be hidden from higher ups. This could be ‘plausible deniability’ or hiding a rogue effort – but it is important to realize how uniquely the Wilson trips were handled.

UPDATE II:

Cleaned up text, extended the ending

UPDATE:

Looks like we are beginning to pull Tom Maguire over to the dark side!

Mac Ranger has more on the WND story here, and on the Hindraker topic here

But most importantly to my theory outlined below is Mac Ranger found more linkage to AQ Kahn and his two trips to Niger in….

Yep, you guessed it. 1999. (translated version here)

A recent intelligence lead takes us back to Niger, where Khan was a welcomed guest of the government and where his intermediaries continue to do business, the very same who in 1999 made a fool of the French Secret Services charged with monitoring – through the multinational Cogema – the uranium mines from which some years before were able to illegally export 1,200 tons of yellow cake (yellow uranium oxide from which gas is extracted to be applied in centrifuges in order to be enriched) to Libya.
…
Businessmen from Niger and the «architect» of the Islamic Bomb turn up in the notes of the secret services who some time back indicated, amongst other things, the attempts made by Saddam’s emissaries to buy uranium from Niamey in the very same period in which, in Nigers capital, the Old Man of the DIY nuclear device, Khan, was present.

As was seen in Niger-gate the final report of the British Parliaments Commission, in July 2004, pointed out the passage in Niger of Iraqi officials in 1999 and mentions sellers of uranium who in 1999 and 2001 planned to sell uranium to Iran, Libya, China, North Korea and Iraq.
…
Secret Informative notes refer in detail to how Khan and his scientific council made a series of visits to Niger and to the Direction of the Pakistani nuclear site of Khauta, visits made in February. In 1998, and above all 1999, a series of encounters defined by nuclear anti-proliferation experts as highly suspect, were held in Niamey. It was here that the «doctor» had his atomic shopping base, the very same base as was used for trips to Sudan, Nigeria, Dubai, Casablanca (where he was received by the ambassador Kakar), Bamako or Timbuktu in Mali (February 98, Hotel Hendrina Khan), Chad where in February he visited the Shifa centre which had just been bombed by the Americans.

Bingo! We know why Wilson and the CIA was interested. But even more so – we know there was an Iraqi connection.

More at American Thinker. This story is about to bust wide open!

END UPDATE

Sorry folks, not a lot of time to post this morning.

I suggest you check out this Jack Cashill piece at WND. It is a pretty good piece, but I wish he would focus more on the fact Kristof clearly implicates Valerie as one of his sources:

I’m told by a person involved in the Niger caper that more than a year ago the vice president’s office asked for an investigation of the uranium deal, so a former U.S. ambassador to Africa was dispatched to Niger. In February 2002, according to someone present at the meetings, that envoy reported to the CIA and State Department that the information was unequivocally wrong and that the documents had been forged.

I hate to beat a dead horse, but the wording I emphasized clearly implies a witness to Joe Wilson’s debriefing. According to the Senate report the debriefing was at the Wilson’s house with Valerie, Joe and two DO agents. The two DO agents have testified there was no discussion of the Niger forgeries – because there wasn’t. So the only witness who would back up Joe’s Niger document angle was Valerie. Who Kristof knew – according to Tom Maguire.

UPDATE:

BTW, the same is true for the Pincus story referenced in the WND article. This time there is a clear reference to ‘sources’ – which can only be Valerie and J0e (unless the DO agents perjured themselves in front of the US Senate)

After returning to the United States, the envoy reported to the CIA that the uranium-purchase story was false, the sources said. Among the envoy’s conclusions was that the documents may have been forged because the “dates were wrong and the names were wrong,” the former U.S. government official said.

There were only two people present that would add the forgery spin to the debriefing.

END UPDATE:

The other must read on this topic is John Hindraker’s scathing piece on the CIA war and all the leaks coming out in a misguided attempt to set the press against Bush (like they aren’t already there!).

THE CIA’S WAR against the Bush administration is one of the great untold stories of the past three years. It is, perhaps, the agency’s most successful covert action of recent times. The CIA has used its budget to fund criticism of the administration by former Democratic officeholders. The agency allowed an employee, Michael Scheuer, to publish and promote a book containing classified information, as long as, in Scheuer’s words, “the book was being used to bash the president.” However, the agency’s preferred weapon has been the leak. In one leak after another, generally to the New York Times or the Washington Post, CIA officials have sought to undermine America’s foreign policy. Usually this is done by leaking reports or memos critical of administration policies or skeptical of their prospects. Through it all, our principal news outlets, which share the agency’s agenda and profit from its torrent of leaks, have maintained a discreet silence about what should be a major scandal.

The Plame Game with Niger forgeries was just one of these efforts. The problem is the Wilsons bungled it somehow. They tied their forgery leak-scam to the 2002 trip of Joe Wilson to Niger. This was to be a big mistake. Because that was the fourth trip to the region for Wilson, one being in 1999 and again for the CIA. Why was is so important for Wilson to get to Niger, over the doubts of the entire intelligence community, while two other investigations were on going?

It is pretty clear. Wilson, in his own words, made sure the people he talked to in Niger knew he was from ‘the government’. The same people in power during the coupe d’etat in 1999 who were looking for money to finance their new government and get out from under the uranium market recession that had been going on for years. The reason Joe needed to say he was from ‘the government’ was so they knew he was back in his emissary role for the CIA.

He needed to talk to these people so badly he did not once complain about the restrictions placed on him by the other two investigations to stay away from current Niger leaders. Joe was more than happy to talk to Niger leaders who were somehow extremely well off and working with business men in the uranium trade. Former Niger leaders who were more than happy to walk away from leading the country to allow for a democratically elected government.

On this site we have speculated that the rogue CIA elements that Hindraker is pointing to are so rogue they would partake in black market trade of such items as uranium. We have shown how uranium was/is still available from abandoned minds in Niger and Gabon – where Wilson was US Ambassador. Was the uranium from these abandoned mines (abandoned by French company Cogema/Avera Group) being routed to Libya through Niger?

And the money for lobbyists for these countries was immense. This is probably why Wilson went into private business. He was just following the lead of his second wife (before Valerie)

Gabon has also maintained a three-year-old relationship with Jacqueline Wilson, the ex-spouse of a senior US diplomat. According to her filings, Wilson receives tens of thousands of dollars for special projects and reports to President Omar Bongo’s daughter, Pascaline Mferri Bongo.

In her latest filing, Wilson reported that she was paid 60,000 dollars between August and November 2000 to ”support action of president of Gabon to fight AIDS pandemic (and) develop a strategy.” As to work performed, she reported sending ”letters to the office of National AIDS policy at the White House.”

So, why did Valerie and Joe feel it was imperative to get Joe to Niger in 2002 as investigations were heating up all over the place regarding uranium to Africa? Well, if you want to push a military dictator out of the way so elections can take place, you might set him up with an small, illicit trade to keep fat dumb and happy the rest of his life. And you might do this as a CIA special operation, using the former Ambassador of a neighboring country the dictator trusted. And you might do that in 1999.

And when a new administration comes in, one which is not going to patiently wait around while the CIA bribes bad guys to allow democracy to take root, the trouble starts. The CIA’s dirty little secrets are about to be exposed because this new administration has developed an intelligence group within the pentagon equal to the CIA – but not out of the loop on CIA Ops. So the DoD folks start tripping over CIA operations, like the one to get a military dictator out of the way in Niger in 1999. That is why Wilson had to rush to Niger – to put the tooth paste back in the tube and talk to all those now silenced and profitable former leaders.

All well and good. But then the Wilsons wanted to join the Kerry campaign and get back into power. Joe said himself it would take a major scandal to unseat Bush and get Kerry in. He said this days before his Op-Ed came out. The only problem was the scandal was supposed to be about Niger forgeries. It turned out to be about Valerie instead. That led to the Senate investigation that debunked any forgery connections, and which exposed the 1999 trip to Niger for Valerie. That was the mistake. To put a false story on top of a covert story.

That is how this will all fall apart. The Wilsons used a covert operation to cover for a covert political scandal, and in the end helped expose the CIA people, methods, contacts and operations. This is the one leak that the CIA tried that backfired. Because the 1999 and 2002 trips were not about Niger forgeries, but they were very likely about the illegal uranium trade.

We would hope our CIA would be working to close down the illegal trade. But as Mac Ranger points out, our efforts around the world are not always as ‘right side’, and at times we make pacts with the devils.