Christopher Hitchens once again points out that Iraq did seek ‘yellowcake,’ Plame was ‘outed’ by Joe Wilson admirer (and anti warrior) Robert Novak, and Wilson’s entry of her into his listing in ‘Who’s Who,’ and his abject incompetence and lying in his subsequent ‘reports’ of his ‘mission’ to Niger. Story here.
His conclusion is below. Read the piece for his supporting facts (including two nuclear experts who knew Zahawie–and if you don’t know who Zahawie is, you have alot of catching up to do).
This means that both pillars of the biggest scandal-mongering effort yet mounted by the “anti-war” movement—the twin allegations of a false story exposed by Wilson and then of a state-run vendetta undertaken against him and the lady wife who dispatched him on the mission—are in irretrievable ruins. The truth is the exact polar opposite. The original Niger connection was both authentic and important, and Wilson’s utter failure to grasp it or even examine it was not enough to make Karl Rove even turn over in bed. All the work of the supposed “outing” was inadvertently performed by Wilson’s admirer Robert Novak. Of course, one defends the Bush administration at one’s own peril. Thanks largely to Stephen Hadley, assistant to the president for national security affairs, our incompetent and divided government grew so nervous as to disown the words that appeared in the 2003 State of the Union address. But the facts are still the facts, and it is high time that they received one-millionth of the attention that the “Plamegate” farce has garnered.