I don't think Wilson was the mastermind, either, and I wasn't meaning to suggest that he was, just that his handlers may have brought him into the operation even before his reaction to the 2003 SOTU. To fill in some background on his pre-2003 activity: his book mentions discussions he had with Brent Scowcroft shortly after 9/11 where they expressed concerns about neocon influence on Bush's Iraq policy; that would be before his Niger trip, so at least in private conversations with people like Scowcroft he was having that type of discussion already in late 2001. His first public statements opposing action in Iraq were shortly after his Niger trip, in May 2002 at a meeting of Scowcroft’s American-Turkish Council, in conjunction with a presentation by Turkish General Cevik Bir, who expressed views similar to Wilson's during his talk. Wilson had worked with Bir on NATO and Iraq operations when he was stationed in Germany in 1995-1997, and Bir had expressed his criticisms of the US embargo of Iraq to Wilson then, Wilson's book also mentions. When Wilson retired from diplomatic service in 1998 he remained in contact with Middle Eastern contacts he had made during his diplomatic service such as Bir. If there was some link between Wilson's Middle Eastern business contacts and someone at VIPS, that might explain how Wilson got involved with the pro-Palestinian people at VIPS. The link may have been McGovern or perhaps someone else who was a mutual point of contact between Wilson's business circles and VIPS. The first place I'd look would be for someone from VIPS who was in contact with Brent Scowcroft, Cevik Bir, Mohammed Alamoudi, or Elias Aburdene.
Oh, I don't think you're suggesting anything or set on any one idea--I'm just thinking out loud and assume you are, too.
I had linked Wilson to VIPS through Foley. But Scowcroft is definitely a favorite of theirs, mentioned several times in their writings--remember that memo to the president where they asked for Scowcroft to head an investigation?
I hadn't paid much attention to what Wilson said in his book, just assumed it was all revisionist history. I'll look more into the Scowcroft angle.
Check this out--in the past two days McGovern has been writing articles trying to push the story back to Cheney. After two years of saying this was a smear campaign to intimidate Wilson, he's now veering away from that and saying Wilson came too close to the "truth". Again, trying to put this all back on a Cheney cover-up.
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20050718/why_plame_matters.php
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20050719/cheney_and_plame.php
It could be that McGovern knows this thing is going way off from what VIPS originally plotted it to be--exposing Cheney's super secret rule the world scheme--and is trying to direct it back that way so it's not a total wash. Unfortunately, the press won't seem to cooperate.