the report discredited Wilson

* the other day i took another look at Novak's Plame-outing column - a couple of things stuck out, one was the fact that Novak was trying to get the CIA to declassify WIlson's Niger report, and another was that Novak said that the iraqis were trying to buy uranium from Niger in 1988, not 1998.

It won't surprise you to learn that emptywheel has already taken a look at Novak's attempts to declassify the Wilson's report:

"The great truth-teller Robert Novak indicated that the White House was trying to declassify this trip report as part of its campaign against Joe Wilson, so we can presume the White House thought the report discredited Wilson".

Second, EW quotes Wilson's book where he says that the Iraqi attempt (such as it was) happened in 1999 (not 1988) - was this an honest error by Novak? or some other shenanigans?

(as an aside, she quotes Wilson debriefing the CIA where he gave his conclusions, "as well as my observations about where our government might inquire further if it was not persuaded by my report" - which again raises the question - why didnt the egadmin claim that 'even by wilson's own account, his 'findings' were incomplete'?)