Novak is hedging his words here. The Niger story is true, and there was never any doubt that it was true. Iraq's trade mission to Niger is and was public knowledge.
Why Bush buttressed his argument by referring to British intelligence is a mystery to me, because it was unnecessary. The Iraqi mission to Niger is in the public domain.
What wasn't then in the public domain, which we now know, is that France and Niger were selling uranium to Libya. Iraq "sought" uranium, just as Bush said, but Niger and the French actually delivered on sales to Khadaffi. Keep this in mind when you remember back to Wilson's hysterical attacks on Bush, and similarly hysterical attacks by the Democrats, and similarly hysterical attacks by the DNC's operatives in the press.
Remember the "forged" documents that the French passed to the CIA and then exposed, to make Bush look like a liar; we now know that French intel commissioned the documents and the Niger embassy produced them. Everyone who has been involved in covering up Niger's uranium contraband operation has been exposed as a liar.
Do you suppose that this will make the news on CNN/ABC/CBS/NBC?
How do we know the French were the authors? Do you have a cite, svp?
indeed, that is also what I have heard - that is was the French who planted the forged documents to cover up the story that would have shown them as the middleman between iraq and niger.
of course it won't make the MSM - but the sad part is that the administration also seems to have given up on this part of the story.
Sorry I asked. Here's a link to the Telegraph.
http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/09/19/wniger19.xml