[Bush2000]

I believe, based upon my own reading, that statement is false. Wilson expressly stated in public that he had no idea whether the Vice-President even knew he was going.

Whether Cheney knew that Wilson, himself, was going is sort of beside the point. Cheney knew that the CIA would be following up on his request via the intelligence report -- so Cheney knew that SOMEBODY was going to Niger. Read Wilson's own words:

"In February 2002, I was informed by officials at the Central Intelligence Agency that Vice President Dick Cheney's office had questions about a particular intelligence report. While I never saw the report, I was told that it referred to a memorandum of agreement that documented the sale of uranium yellowcake — a form of lightly processed ore — by Niger to Iraq in the late 1990's. The agency officials asked if I would travel to Niger to check out the story so they could provide a response to the vice president's office. "

Clearly, it was Wilson's perspective that he was acting on behalf of Cheney's office.

[lugsoul]

That's a stretch, putting it mildly. It was certainly his perspective that the Agency was acting in response to the VP's request. But he explicitly says that agency officials - not the VP - asked him to go.

He has said so, explicitly. He acknowledged that the VP didn't even know he was going to help the Agency respond to the VP's inquiry. How does that translate into the utterly false accusation advanced by the WSJ?