Reply #4: Lets see if it disappears from the embassy websites too. [View All]

[joemurphy]

Well, it's July 9th - day 3 after Wilson's article. Ari's spin on Wilson is that his information was no big deal. Wilson went to Niger, asked the government if it sold uranium to Iraq, and he came back and reported that they said they didn't. Ari claims the administration didn't find out there was nothing to the Niger uranium story until March, 2003 when it was learned the purchase documents were forgeries.

If this was Pinocchio a nose would be growing.

Question for Ari: If you guys knew the Niger uranium deal was phony in March, why didn't you clarify that fact to Congress and the American people. Now, in July, you tell us: "Whoops, it was thin intelligence. It shouldn't have been in the State of the Union Address."

It's also the administration's first direct response to Wilson's charge that the Bush Administration "twisted" intelligence to get us into war. Possibly the Administration's first salvo in the "War on Wilson" that Cooper would later write about in his Time article.

It isn't a direct attack on Wilson though. It just downplays the importance of Wilson's findings.