The Senate committee had held hearings during this time to try to find out how the administration came to rely on the Niger intelligence at a time when numerous intelligence agencies had warned top officials in the Bush administration that it was unreliable.
Foley said he spoke to Joseph a day or two before President Bush's January 28, 2003, State of the Union address and told Joseph that detailed references to Iraq and Niger should be excluded from Bush's speech. Foley told committee members that Joseph agreed to water down the language and would instead, he told Foley, attribute the intelligence to the British, which is exactly what Bush's speech said.
However, a few weeks before Foley's meeting with the Senate committee, the Niger intelligence was beginning to unravel and threatened to expose the roles of Libby, Hadley, Joseph, Hannah, and Rove in getting the administration to rely upon it to build the case for war.
The sources said it was during this time that Libby, Hadley, Joseph, Hannah and Rove plotted to silence Wilson by leaking his wife's name to a specific group of reporters, saying that she chose him for the fact-finding mission to Niger and as a result his investigation was highly suspect. It's unclear what role, if any, Cheney played, but the sources said Fitzgerald is trying to determine if the vice president was involved.
The sources said Hannah is one of the cooperating witnesses in the probe.
The sources said this time frame was chosen because there were "rumors" that Wilson was "going to go public" and reveal that he had checked out the Niger claims on behalf of the CIA and that there was no truth to them. According to the sources close to the probe, all five of the officials have spoken with reporters about Plame Wilson.
At the same time that Plame Wilson's CIA status was leaked to reporters, Libby, Rove and Hadley had been exchanging emails that included draft statements explaining how the "sixteen words" ended up in President Bush's State of the Union address, the sources added.
"Before Mr. Wilson's article appeared in the New York Times," one source close to the case said, "the administration still insisted that Niger still had merit. It was only after the article had been published that the White House accepted responsibility."
Wilson disclosed in an op-ed he wrote in the New York Times that he had been the special envoy chosen by the CIA in February 2002 to travel to Niger to investigate allegations that Iraq tried to purchase 500 tons of yellowcake uranium from the African country.
Wilson's fact-finding mission had come as a result of additional questions Vice President Cheney raised with the CIA about the veracity of those allegations a month or so before Wilson was selected for the mission. Wilson wrote in the column that he had reported back to the CIA eight days after his trip that there was no truth to the charges. In his column, he accused the administration of ignoring his report. He said President Bush and Cheney continued to cite the Niger uranium intelligence, knowing it was false, in order to dupe the public and Congress into supporting the war.
In the four months prior to writing his column, Cheney and officials from the NSC insisted that the Niger intelligence had merit, and said as much publicly, despite the fact that the International Atomic Energy Association found that they were crude forgeries. Moreover, there is evidence that Cheney, Hadley, Libby, and numerous other officials were warned as early as March 2002 - one year before the start of the Iraq war - that claims suggesting Iraq tried to purchase uranium from Niger were baseless.
Indeed, witnesses in the case have testified that President Bush's senior aides, the vice president's office, the Pentagon, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the State Department, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Justice Department, the FBI, and the National Security Council had received and read a March 9, 2002, cable sent by the CIA that debunked the Niger claims.
The cable was prepared by a CIA analyst and was based on Wilson's oral report upon his return from Niger. It did not mention Wilson by name, but quoted a "CIA source" and Niger officials Wilson had questioned during his eight-day mission, who said there was absolutely no truth to the claims that Iraq had tried to purchase 500 tons of yellowcake uranium ore from Niger.
Cheney and other officials connected to the leak have said over the years that they never saw such a report from the CIA, and had never heard of Wilson until he became the subject of news accounts in which the former ambassador called into question the veracity of the Niger documents upon which the uranium claims were based.
The sources said it was during this month, March 2003, when Wilson arrived on the administration's radar as a result of his public comments that alleged the White House had manipulated intelligence, that Cheney, Libby, and Hadley spearheaded an effort to discredit Wilson.
It was during the course of their attempts to attack Wilson's credibility and rebut his charges that officials in the State Department, the CIA, Cheney's office, and the National Security Council - many of whom were responsible for pushing the administration to cite the Niger claims - learned that Wilson's wife was a covert CIA agent and, upon learning that she may have been responsible for sending Wilson to Niger, leaked her name to a handful of reporters.
Foley said he spoke to Joseph a day or two before President Bush's January 28, 2003, State of the Union address and told Joseph that detailed references to Iraq and Niger should be excluded from Bush's speech. Foley told committee members that Joseph agreed to water down the language and would instead, he told Foley, attribute the intelligence to the British, which is exactly what Bush's speech said.
However, a few weeks before Foley's meeting with the Senate committee, the Niger intelligence was beginning to unravel and threatened to expose the roles of Libby, Hadley, Joseph, Hannah, and Rove in getting the administration to rely upon it to build the case for war.
The sources said it was during this time that Libby, Hadley, Joseph, Hannah and Rove plotted to silence Wilson by leaking his wife's name to a specific group of reporters, saying that she chose him for the fact-finding mission to Niger and as a result his investigation was highly suspect. It's unclear what role, if any, Cheney played, but the sources said Fitzgerald is trying to determine if the vice president was involved.
The sources said this time frame was chosen because there were "rumors" that Wilson was "going to go public" and reveal that he had checked out the Niger claims on behalf of the CIA and that there was no truth to them. According to the sources close to the probe, all five of the officials have spoken with reporters about Plame Wilson.
At the same time that Plame Wilson's CIA status was leaked to reporters, Libby, Rove and Hadley had been exchanging emails that included draft statements explaining how the "sixteen words" ended up in President Bush's State of the Union address, the sources added.
"Before Mr. Wilson's article appeared in the New York Times," one source close to the case said, "the administration still insisted that Niger still had merit. It was only after the article had been published that the White House accepted responsibility."
Wilson disclosed in an op-ed he wrote in the New York Times that he had been the special envoy chosen by the CIA in February 2002 to travel to Niger to investigate allegations that Iraq tried to purchase 500 tons of yellowcake uranium from the African country.
Wilson's fact-finding mission had come as a result of additional questions Vice President Cheney raised with the CIA about the veracity of those allegations a month or so before Wilson was selected for the mission. Wilson wrote in the column that he had reported back to the CIA eight days after his trip that there was no truth to the charges. In his column, he accused the administration of ignoring his report. He said President Bush and Cheney continued to cite the Niger uranium intelligence, knowing it was false, in order to dupe the public and Congress into supporting the war.
In the four months prior to writing his column, Cheney and officials from the NSC insisted that the Niger intelligence had merit, and said as much publicly, despite the fact that the International Atomic Energy Association found that they were crude forgeries. Moreover, there is evidence that Cheney, Hadley, Libby, and numerous other officials were warned as early as March 2002 - one year before the start of the Iraq war - that claims suggesting Iraq tried to purchase uranium from Niger were baseless.
Indeed, witnesses in the case have testified that President Bush's senior aides, the vice president's office, the Pentagon, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the State Department, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Justice Department, the FBI, and the National Security Council had received and read a March 9, 2002, cable sent by the CIA that debunked the Niger claims.
The cable was prepared by a CIA analyst and was based on Wilson's oral report upon his return from Niger. It did not mention Wilson by name, but quoted a "CIA source" and Niger officials Wilson had questioned during his eight-day mission, who said there was absolutely no truth to the claims that Iraq had tried to purchase 500 tons of yellowcake uranium ore from Niger.
Cheney and other officials connected to the leak have said over the years that they never saw such a report from the CIA, and had never heard of Wilson until he became the subject of news accounts in which the former ambassador called into question the veracity of the Niger documents upon which the uranium claims were based.
The sources said it was during this month, March 2003, when Wilson arrived on the administration's radar as a result of his public comments that alleged the White House had manipulated intelligence, that Cheney, Libby, and Hadley spearheaded an effort to discredit Wilson.
It was during the course of their attempts to attack Wilson's credibility and rebut his charges that officials in the State Department, the CIA, Cheney's office, and the National Security Council - many of whom were responsible for pushing the administration to cite the Niger claims - learned that Wilson's wife was a covert CIA agent and, upon learning that she may have been responsible for sending Wilson to Niger, leaked her name to a handful of reporters.
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