The Daily Howler is Missing the Forest For the Trees

He has been critical, and often rightly so, for the press reports on the Iraq uranium seeking stories.

Here, here and here.

I think he has missed the bigger picture.

Two separate people were sent to investigate and it was found to be false and this was reported to the CIA, the State Department, the VP's office and the White House. This was even before it was obvious that the Niger documents were extremely crude forgeries.

The partisans in the office of special plans refused to accept this and kept pressing.

Tenet blocked mention of Iraq seeking uranium in previous speeches but wasn't involved in the negotiations on the SOU. His representative agreed to let Bush say "British Intelligence has learned" when the CIA had known the most credible part of the story was false and in fact had also told this to British Intelligence.

GW "Can I say Iraq is doing this?"

Jim "We looked at it and it isn't believable. The most credible part we found was false."

GW "Can I say Blair learned it?"

Jim "We told him it wasn't true but if you want to lie that way..."

GW "Thanks."