"The real point where this scandal will become intensely difficult for the Bush White House is not the leak itself but the forged documents"

No "perhaps", "maybe" but "will become"? I gotta get me one of those crystal balls you're using.

Well, I know people who have been working this story for some time and the stuff they are uncovering is big. Its the relationship to the forgeries to the Vice President that was the cause of all of this--Its why they don't want us to know about them that I'd like to know.

"the relationship to the forgeries to the Vice President"

What if there proves to be no significant relationship? What if the Iranians or Chalabi cooked up the documents?

If there is no signficant relationship, there is no signficant relationship--People have been looking at Chalabi on this one for some time. But, as for Cheney's relationship, the only documented link to Niger was the forgeries--first a typed up summary of them and then the forgeries themselves. Cheney bit on forgeries that anyone else who looked at them said they were forged--or did he know they were faked? That's going to be the question of the hour. If he did no know why all of the efforts to get away from Wilson's trip?

But Wilson himself reports: a high level official of Iraq "approached an official of the African nation of Niger in 1999 to discuss trade -- an overture the official saw as a possible effort to buy uranium."

Wilson had reported back to the CIA that a former Niger official told him that "in June 1999 a businessman approached him and insisted that the former official meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss 'expanding commercial relations' between Iraq and Niger. The former official interpreted the overture as an attempt to discuss uranium sales."
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A54640-2004Apr29?language=printer)
But back on topic, if Cheney knew from the start that there were forgeries out there and put them forward as a fact, then he's in trouble. But...I doubt that's how things went down.
Hmmm.

Doesn't make sense though. Everyone else knew immediately--the first time they saw the docs. The information in them was completely wrong. Either Cheney is an idiot or lying. Which do you think?

Not to mention that there were three reports, one by Wilson, and two by others, including a marine general which indicated nothing to the story. As for the earlier 1999 interpretations of Wilson, perhaps his judgment was right, or maybe wrong. But he certainly felt it was like that.

But the fact was that Iraq had 500 tons of Yellowcake already. It didn't need anymore.

My point is this--when did the VP know the documents were forged? I don't think he typed them up himself. But if he knew they were forged, but still let them become a big part of the Iraq push, then we have a problem, Houston.

Wow, we may have both had it right. La Repubblica is insinuating in its second three-parter, that it was Chalabi, the Iranians, AND the neo-cons. Suckered by the Republican Guard. What a laugh. http://nuralcubicle.blogspot.com/2005/10/sismis-war-in-iraq-iranian-connection.html