It was partisan propaganda from the beginning as far as Wilson was concerned.
As an investigator myself, I think it's a little moronic to go to Niger and ask the corrupt government officials there if the Iraqis had been trying to buy yellowcake from them. Of course this is the age of recreational drugs so things are being done a lot differently. It's kind of like going to a prison and asking the cons if they are really guilty of committing the crimes they have been convicted of committing.
Since this is from last year, you might already have this in your files--but here's a ping in case you don't.
"Intelligence officers learned between 1999 and 2001 that uranium smugglers planned to sell illicitly mined Nigerien uranium ore, or refined ore called yellow cake, to Iran, Libya, China, North Korea and Iraq."
The Senate Intelligence Committee report stated that in 1999, Valerie Plame suggested to her superiors that her husband be sent on a mission to Niger because he was about to take a business trip there. Then in 2002, she again suggested her husband for a mission to Niger because he knew the PM and the Minister of Mines.
What business did Joe Wilson have in Niger in 1999? Why did he know the Minister of Mines in 2002? Isn't it interesting that the dates Joe Wilson was doing business in Niger just happened to coincide with the dates British intelligence learned of impending illicit uranium sales out of Niger? Isn't it also interesting that Joe Wilson just happens to be the last American to have seen Saddam Hussein before the first Gulf War in 1991? And wasn't it convenient that right after Wilson left the White House and set up his "business," (which other FReepers have noted has no known business registration anywhere), he married a CIA employee who happened to be working on nuclear counterproliferation?
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to connect these dots. I think the reason Wilson got himself sent on these trips to Niger by the CIA and then made a bogus report about what he did and found had nothing to do with a plot to undermine the President - that was the cover story that came later after he landed with the Kerry campaign.