Wednesday, July 21, 2004
Joe [Wilson] was right
...Wilson's central claim was that there was virtually no evidence to back up the idea that Saddam had sought uranium from Niger. The CIA agreed with that assessment before the war, it agreed with it after the war, and it still agrees with it — and the Senate Intelligence report backs them up.
Bottom line: on his primary point, the one he's been flogging for over a year now, Wilson has been vindicated.
Of course, the British continue to stand behind their contention that Saddam tried to buy uranium from Africa, but they refuse to explain why they think this. And since British intelligence on Iraq hasn't been notably more accurate than American intelligence, it's hard to think of any good reason to believe them unless they provide us all with a little more evidence.
Wilson may be guilty of overembellishing his case on several minor points, but on the central question he brought up — should the president have made those claims about African uranium in his State of the Union address? — he was right. The CIA admits