The forged documents were given to our embassy in Italy in October 2002---well AFTER Wilson's trip in February, 2002. Those documents were not sent to our headquarters over here until February 2003---AFTER President Bush's SOTU address. Even Wilson now admits he "misspoke" (I say "lied") when he tried to tie the forged documents to his accusations.
and leaking Plame's name did come from the White House in retaliation, justified or not.
The leaking did not come from the WH at all, and the story was not given to Novak as "retaliation" but explanation.
In my guesstimation Wilson's blunder here comes from two directions. 1. Trying to hide that his wife told him all about the report from Italy and 2. Trying to hide that as part of his project to portray himself as the hero central to the story he stepped too far, claiming he had a role in debunking the forgeries.
Or he knew all along about the forgeries...C'est possibile?