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But I wonder if we can find the original article, wherein our mystical "Terrance J. Wilkinson, CIA agent" was purportedly leaking a major scandal to Thompson. It was taken down from the CHB site, but might still be somewhere here on FR.

I think I found the title and date and a summary, at least:

McKinley's America

On July 8th, Capitol Hill Blue published a story titled "White House Admits Bush Lied About Iraqi Nukes". The bold headline was backed by an equally assertive lead-in, which stated "After weeks of denial, the White House Monday finally admitted President Bush lied in his January State of the Union Address when he claimed Iraq had sought significant quantities of uranium in Africa." This assertion went far beyond what other news organizations were reporting, which was that the Bush administration had admitted that the claim made in the State of the Union Address was based on information the President later found to be unreliable. There were other eye-raising details in the story, however.

The article quoted a "CIA advisor" named Terrance J. Wilkinson, claiming he had been present at two White House briefings attended by the President. "The report had already been discredited," the story quoted Wilkinson as stating. "This point was clearly made when the president was in the room during at least two of the briefings" said Wilkinson, who claimed Bush responded in anger. "He said that if the current operatives working for the CIA couldn't prove the story was true, then the agency had better find some who could," the Capitol Hill Blue story continued Wilkinson's quote. "He said he knew the story was true and so would the world after American troops secured the country." Wilkinson claimed to have written "numerous memos" questioning the use of "intelligence information that we knew to be from dubious sources." While American troops continue to search Iraq for a smoking gun regarding weapons of mass destruction, these allegations, if true, would be the smoking gun the left wing of American politics has been searching for in their quest to discredit the Bush administration.

On Free Republic, a website where conservatives dissect and debate the news, some people (including this author) started to question the story. The White House admitted Bush lied? Where could such an admission be found? And who is Terrance J. Wilkinson? Searches using various Internet tools such as Google were coming up empty. Doug Thompson joined in the discussion to defend his work and his publication. "The use of the word 'lied' has also sparked some controversy on the Capitol Hill Blue forum as well. It was my decision to use the word. Wilkinson did not accuse the President of lying. I did, based on information from other sources (who would not go on the record) that Bush was told outright that the information had been discredited before the State of the Union address but that he chose to use it anyway. To me that was a lie and I chose to use it in the headline and the lead of the story." Thompson admitted that he chose such a strong accusation because "I'm mad. Bush didn't have to use a discredited claim to justify the war with Iraq." However, Thompson admitted, "The headline is technically incorrect because the White House made no such admission. I have edited the headline and the lead of the story to reflect that." Thompson republished the article with the word 'lied' changed to 'wrong' in the headline, and the lead-in changed similarly. But what about Terrance J. Wilkinson? Thompson stood by his man. "I've known Terry Wilkinson for 20+ years and his decision to go public was a painful one that I'm sure will bring recriminations."

The same article is apparently referenced with a different, less inflammatory title here:

I Protest Archive

Over a month ago I wrote an entry here called "The Bush psyche." Well, today Steve Gilliard at the Daily KOS wrote "Time to admit the obvious: there are no WMD," in which he quotes a story from Capitol Hill Blue, "White House admits Bush wrong about Iraqi nukes."

"The [Niger] report had already been discredited," said Terrance J. Wilkinson, a CIA advisor present at two White House briefings. "This point was clearly made when the President was in the room during at least two of the briefings."

Bush's response was anger, Wilkinson said.

"He said that if the current operatives working for the CIA couldn't prove the story was true, then the agency had better find some who could," Wilkinson said. "He said he knew the story was true and so would the world after American troops secured the country."

This link given seems to redirect to a sanitized archive version of the article where references to Wilkinson have been removed, along with Thompson's name:

"White House admits Bush wrong about Iraqi nukes", July 8, 2003

After weeks of denial, the White House Monday finally admitted President Bush was wrong in his January State of the Union Address when he claimed Iraq had sought significant quantities of uranium in Africa.

The acknowledgment came as a British parliamentary commission questioned the reliability of British intelligence about Saddam Hussein's efforts to obtain weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to the war in Iraq.

Bush said in his State of the Union address that the British government had learned that Saddam recently sought significant quantities of uranium in Africa.

The president's statement was incorrect because it was based on forged documents from the African nation of Niger, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer acknowledged.

A British parliamentary committee has also concluded that Prime Minister Tony Blair's government mishandled intelligence material on Iraqi weapons.

John Stanley, a Conservative member of the committee, said so far no evidence has been found in Iraq to substantiate four key claims, including that Iraq was seeking uranium in Africa as part of an effort to restart a nuclear weapons program.

The International Atomic Energy Agency told the United Nations in March that the information about uranium was based on forged documents.

I also tried searching Google for the link that redirects to the archived version, and they've pulled the original out of their cache as well:

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_2518.shtml

Thanks so much, Fedora. It was the FReeper William McKinley who blew the whistle on Doug Thompson's tale, wasn't it? And eventually forced him to retract the story, with that tortured mea culpa.

I wonder. Does Terrance J. Wilkinson sound like Joseph C. Wilson to you? The claims and the manner of speaking? The tone is different than the one that Wilson adopted in his writing, but when he's worked himself into high dudgeon on the air, it sure sounds a lot like Terrance J. Wilkinson.

Joe Wilson? Or a close co-conspirator? It sounds like a test run for the op-ed, doesn't it? How much can I get away with, how far can I go?

Funny, too, how this ended up down the memory hole. It got swamped by the op-ed, sure. But nobody ever seemed to pick up on the association.

After weeks of denial, the White House Monday finally admitted President Bush was wrong in his January State of the Union Address when he claimed Iraq had sought significant quantities of uranium in Africa.

What drives me crazy about this is the fact that Bush did NOT lie, he quoted British intelligence! GRRRRR!

The original is in the wayback machine: http://web.archive.org/web/20030721134532/http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_2518.shtml but doesn't reference Wilkinson. The Capitol Hill Blue archive version is here: http://www.capitolhillblue.com/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi?archive=19&num=2518. I need to keep looking.

1982 : (THIS IS THE YEAR DOUG THOMPSON SAYS HE MET "TERRENCE J WILKINSON" - See CAPITOL HILL BLUE, TRUTHOUT.ORG, NIGERFLAP, 16 WORDS keywords on FR) In 1982, while I was working for Congressman Manuel Lujan of New Mexico, a man came up to a me during a gathering in Albuquerque and introduced himself as Terrance J. Wilkinson. He said he was a security consultant and gave me a business card with his name and just a Los Angeles phone number. A few weeks later, he called my Washington office and asked to meet for lunch. He seemed to know a lot about the nuclear labs in New Mexico and said he had conducted "security profiles" for both Los Alamos and Sandia National Labs. Lujan served on the committee with oversight on both labs and he offered his services if we ever needed briefings.
We already had nuclear experts on the committee, on loan from the Department of Energy, and we never used Wilkinson for briefings but we kept in touch over the years. He said he had served in Vietnam with Army Special Force, worked for Air America, later for the FBI and as a consultant for the CIA. He said he had helped other Republican members of Congress I called some friends in other GOP offices and they said yes, they knew Terry Wilkinson. "You can trust him, he's one of the good guys," one chief of staff [*My note: anonymously?]told me. When I left politics and returned to journalism, Wilkinson became a willing, but always unnamed, source.
Over the last couple of years, Wilkinson served as either a primary or secondary source on a number of stories that have appeared in Capitol Hill Blue regarding intelligence activities. In early stories, I collaborated his information with at least one more source. His information usually proved accurate and, over time, I came to depend on him as a source without additional backup.
...Today, a White House source I know and trust said visitor logs don't have any record of anyone named Terrance J. Wilkinson ever being present at a meeting with the President. Then a CIA source I trust said the agency had no record of a contract consultant with that name. "Nobody, and I mean nobody, has ever heard of this guy," my source said.
I tried calling Terry's phone number. I got a recorded message from a wireless phone provider saying the number was no longer in service. I tried a second phone number I had for him. Same result.
Then a friend from the Hill called. "You've been had," she said. "I know about this guy. He's been around for years, claiming to have been in Special Forces, with the CIA, with NSA. He hasn't worked for any of them and his name is not Terrance Wilkinson."
Both of his phone numbers have Los Angeles area codes but an identity check through Know-X today revealed no record of anyone named Terrance J. Wilkinson ever having lived in LA or surrounding communities.
His email address turns out to be a blind forward to a free email service where anyone can sign up and get an email account. Because it was not one of the usual "free" services like Hotmail, Yahoo or such, I did not recognize it as one (although you'd think that someone like me would have known better).
The bottom line is that someone has been running a con on me for 20 some years and I fell for it like a little old lady in a pigeon drop scheme. I've spent the last two hours going through the database of Capitol Hill Blue stories and removing any that were based on information from Wilkinson (or whoever he is). I've also removed his name, quotes and claims from Tuesday's story about the White House and the uranium claims.
Erasing the stories doesn't erase the fact that we ran articles containing informattion that, given the source, were most likely inaccurate. And it doesn't erase the sad fact that my own arrogance allowed me to be conned. It will be a long time (and perhaps never) before I trust someone else who comes forward and offers inside information. The next one who does had better be prepared to produce a birth certificate, a driver's license and his grandmother's maiden name. Any news publication exists on the trust of its readers. Because I depended on a source that was not credible, I violated the trust that the readers of Capitol Hill Blue placed in me. I was wrong. I am sorry. -------- 'BREAKING: Conned big time "CIA Witness" to White House Lying about Intel story found to be FRAUD,' by Doug Thompson, Capitol Hill Blue, July 9, 2003, http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/943260/posts

[* My note : Note that "Marc Ash of ArtFix.com and Truthout.org fame has LA phone numbers on his whois site registration" and that Truthout is the site which forwarded the Cap Hill Blue article to Japan Today without accredation, and put the whole Wilson story into international news from which CNN apparently picked it up. CNN curiously left out mention of T J Wilkinson's name]

Also see the spelling "Wilkinsson"