Regarding uranium in Niger: http://www.slate.com/id/2139609

Regarding the Libby case: He is charged with lying to prosecutors, not leaking and not outing a CIA operative.

Regarding the build up to the war: Saddam had 15 years to cooperate and prevent the invasion. He did everything in his power to violate the UN resolutions. The US shouldn't have had to do this. The UN should have cleaned up this mess years ago.

>>The facts are still coming in
>>http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FA0B16F9385E0C728EDDAD0894DB404482
>>http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110005133
>>http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1613625/posts
>>http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1616468/posts
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>Facts are still coming in.
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>We have learned from Scott McClellan's 7/18/2003 press briefing that the information in the report that Bush had Cheney / Libby leak to Judy Miller was "just, as of today, officially declassified", which means it was officially declassified 10 days AFTER the info was given to Miller.
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>We have learned from Bush that he ordered parts of the NIE to be leaked to 'get the truth out', but that the leaked info had already been discredited.
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>We learned from Libby's own testimony that what he leaked to Judy Miller... one key judgment of the NIE held that Iraq was 'vigorously trying to procure' uranium... was not a key judgement of the NIE. And that the NIE contained contradictory info about procuring uranium... which was not leaked.
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>We learned who leaked Plame's name.
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>We learned that Bush told Blair he thought of "flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft planes with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colours" so that if they were fired on, Iraq would be in breach.
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>We learned from a secret memo of the Jan 31, 2003 Bush/Blair meeting that Bush had pencilled in March 10 as the start of the war, approx 2 months before the war started.
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>We learned from a July 2002 "SECRET AND STRICTLY PERSONAL - UK EYES ONLY" that UK officials, after meeting with US officials, wrote that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action." "It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran."
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>We learned that a secret weapons survey team had unanimously concluded that the 'biological trailers' had nothing to do with biological weapons and that their findings were transmitted to Washington in a field report on May 27, 2003, two days before the president stated that 2 small trailers captured by U.S. troops had turned out to be long-sought mobile "biological laboratories" declaring "We have found the weapons of mass destruction."
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>We have learned that the weapons survey team report was stamped secret and then shelved, while the admin continued to 'publicly assert that the trailers were weapons factories'.
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>We learned from CIA memos that the White House tried to use the discredited Niger yellowcake claim 3 times in Bush's speech in Cincinnati before they finally pulled it. We learned what information the CIA provided to White House officials as to why the uranium info should be pulled from the speech: "(1) The evidence is weak. One of the two mines cited by the source as the location of the uranium oxide is flooded. The other mine cited by the source is under the control of the French authorities. (2) The procurement is not particularly significant to Iraq's nuclear ambitions because the Iraqis already have a large stock of uranium oxide in their inventory. And (3) we have shared points one and two with Congress, telling them that the Africa story is overblown and telling them this is one of the two issues where we differed with the British."
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>We learned that the White House used the uranium claim in the SOTU, slapping the phase "The British have learned" on the claim even though the CIA told them repeatedly not to use it and after telling them they discounted the British claim.