THE BRITISH VALIDATION OF NIGER URANIUM CLAIM DEBUNKED

The British Independent On Sunday trumpets its scoop on Joe Wilson and the Niger connection.

Britain continued to insist, however, that it had separate intelligence that validated the claim. The Foreign Office hinted that it was connected to the visit of an "Iraqi delegation" to Niger in 1999, but when the IoS interviewed Wissam al-Zahawie, the only Iraqi diplomat to go there that year, he said he had been investigated and cleared by both the UN and the US.
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Mr Wilson long suspected the attempt to smear him went to the very heart of the administration. In a subsequent memoir, The Politics of Truth, subtitled "Inside the lies that led to war and betrayed my wife's CIA identity", he wrote: "I am told ... that the office of the Vice-President - either the Vice-President himself or more likely his chief of staff, Lewis 'Scooter' Libby - chaired a meeting at which a decision was made to do a work-up on me." And Mr Wilson told the IoS he believed it was very unlikely that Dick Cheney was not aware of what was happening. "If he did not know about it, he should be saying so."