Kowalski at Redstate is positing a theory (since he used ‘posit’ I had to of course) that one possible purpose to Wilson’s trip was to give them a heads up to clean up. This was not Wilson’s first foray to the region and he had ties to all the mining interests (as his own wife points out in her memo recommending him for the trip, the second trip she recommended him for). A quote from Wilson’s editorial is included

In Wilson’s op-ed, he says the following:

Given the structure of the consortiums that operated the mines, it would be exceedingly difficult for Niger to transfer uranium to Iraq. Niger’s uranium business consists of two mines, Somair and Cominak, which are run by French, Spanish, Japanese, German and Nigerian interests.

Jul 14th, 2005: 12:09:40

With th exception of Spain at the time, two of those countries were stridently against our efforts in Iraq.

The paper talks in depth about this aspect of the France-Niger relationship, and the deep connections it implied in order that France would continue to enjoy unfettered access to uranium to supply its scores of nuclear reactors, which generate more than three-fourths of all electricity in France. In more recent years, France has turned away from that policy to a significant extent — now buying its uranium increasingly on the world market — but the interests of the consortia that Wilson mentions are fascinating. It is widely known that France was opposed to our military involvement in Iraq, along with Russia and Germany, in no small part because it may be reasonably deduced that military intervention by the United States would expose all of the economic and military ties (both above-board and beneath the radar) that the FRG “Coalition of No” had had with Saddam’s Iraq since Operation Desert Storm.

So was Wilson’s trip really a mission to do some final cleaning up, a kind of early warning to the members of the consortium and to government officials in Niger to tie up all their loose ends? Was he there to help make sure that all of the windows were closed, all the loose papers were collected, and all of the leads that might have pointed to any such illicit transfers were duly and diplomatically (over a few sips of sweet tea) taken care of — to shield those countries from any implication of involvement? Placed into the memory hole? In other words, to make sure their hands looked clean in the runup to the war?

Who knows. It is a bit of a stretch but there could be multiple themes playing in the minds of Plame and Wilson, who have ties to Europe as well as the DC elitists. Interesting question though, I will give it credit for that.