Interesting that this bellicose model of Joseph C. Wilson comes a.) after his trip to Niger and, yet, b.) precedes "What I Didn't Find In Africa" on the NYT op-ed page.
So, in January, 2003 Wilson just knew Saddam had WMD and was all for kicking butt in Iraq. By, by May, 2003, he's breakfasting with Nicholas Kristof and speaking on "deep background" about the lack of a firm foundation for Bush's SOTU.
Why caused this 180, I wonder...
I suspect it was that he had to wait to make sure Bush made the reference to Africa in his SOTU. If Bush had omitted the Africa reference, Wilson's handlers would've had to come up with another angle of attack instead.
I have Lexis Nexis at work. I am going to do some looking in the a.m. When did he go to Niger? And then his op-ed came out July 8, 2003 right?
Okie, I remember that some Congress critter (perhaps Rangel, but don't hold me to it) came out within a very short time of the President's State of the Union address that year and ranted about the mention of the Niger-Iraq connection in the SOTU. In late 2002, there were some documents traced to Italy (again, if memory serves) that were supposedly shown to be forgeries. I think that's how the notion that the British intel was based on forgeries got started.
The true international origins of the full saga are quite murky and trace to at least the fall of 2002. Anyway, I get the impression that Wilson -- either alone or working in concert with congressional Dims like Rangel -- cooked up Wilson's faux outrage shortly after the SOTU address. Wilson and Dim-friendly reporters carried it forward in the manner outlined on this thread.
I think when Novak wrote his piece, that was just so much gravy to the Wilson cadre. At the time, they switched almost on a dime from faux outrage over the SOTU and "misuse" of Wilson's Niger "report," to faux outrage over the "outing" of poor missy Valerie. They got enough traction out of that to get Patrick Fitzgerald appointed.
I'm not entirely sure Novak walked into this mess innocently, either. He may, indeed, have blundered into the story as he describes. However, he's never particularly warmed to the GWB presidency. He says he was cautioned not to use ValP's name, but he did it anyway. So it is at least possible that Novak deliberately aided the Wilson crowd in their attempt to set up the President.