Reply #1: for gawds sake-these revelations did not occure 'during the past week"

[rodeodance]

......Revelations during the past week about the Plame affair make it clear that the Bush administration used covert action against its
own citizens. Consider, for example, the charge that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger. The key event in this
disinformation campaign was the intelligence manufactured by the Italians. The Italian intelligence service, SISME, provided the
CIA with three separate intelligence reports that Iraq had reached an agreement with Niger to buy 500 tons of yellowcake
uranium (October 15, 2001; February 5, 2002; and March 25, 2002). The second report, from February, was the subsequent basis
for a DIA analysis, which led Vice President Cheney to ask the CIA for more information on the matter. That request led to the
CIA asking Ambassador Joe Wilson to go check out the story in Niger.