No, he was charged with perjury. The outing of a CIA agent was not provable because the source was another person. There was also the problem of varying testimony from Ms Plame and her grandstanding husband. I doubt that very many people from East Coast to West Coast of America even know or care about Libby, Wilson, and Plame. It's a tempest in a teapot at best.
http://www.nationalreview.com/may/may200407121105.asp
Our Man in Niger
Exposed and discredited, Joe Wilson might consider going back.
"Joe Wilson's cover has been blown. For the past year, he has claimed to be a truth-teller, a whistleblower, the victim of a vast right-wing conspiracy — and most of the media have lapped it up and cheered him on."
"But now Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV — he of the Hermes ties and Jaguar convertibles — has been thoroughly discredited. Last week's bipartisan
Senate intelligence committee report concluded that it is he who has been telling lies."
"For starters, he has insisted that his wife, CIA employee Valerie Plame, was not the one who came up with the brilliant idea that the agency send him to Niger to investigate whether Saddam Hussein had been attempting to acquire uranium. "Valerie had nothing to do with the matter," Wilson says in his book. "She definitely had not proposed that I make the trip." In fact, the Senate panel found, she was the one who got him that assignment. The panel even found a memo by her. (She should have thought to use disappearing ink.)"
"In particular he said that President Bush was lying when, in
his 2003 State of the Union address, he pronounced these words: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
We now know for certain that Wilson was wrong and that Bush's statement was entirely accurate."
"There's still more: As
Susan Schmidt reported — back on page A9 of Saturday's Washington Post: "Contrary to Wilson's assertions and even the government's previous statements, the CIA did not tell the White House it had qualms about the reliability of the Africa intelligence."
"The Senate report says fairly bluntly that Wilson lied to the media. Schmidt notes that the panel found that, "Wilson provided misleading information to the
Washington Post last June. He said then that he concluded the Niger intelligence was based on a document that had clearly been forged because "the dates were wrong and the names were wrong.'"
"The problem is Wilson "had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports," the Senate panel discovered. Schmidt notes: "The documents — purported sales agreements between Niger and Iraq — were not in U.S. hands until eight months after Wilson made his trip to Niger."
"Now that we know that Mrs. Wilson did recommend Mr. Wilson for the Niger assignment, can we not infer that she was working at CIA headquarters in Langley rather than as an undercover operative in some front business or organization somewhere?"
"As I suggested in another NRO piece (
Spy Games), if that is the case —
if she was not working undercover and if the CIA was not taking measures to protect her cover — no law was broken by columnist Bob Novak in naming her, or by whoever told Novak that she worked for the CIA."
"It is against the law to knowingly name an undercover agent. It is not against the law to name a CIA employee who is not an undercover agent. For example, I know the identity of "Anonymous," the CIA employee who has now written a book trashing the Bush administration for its policies. But since he is not — to the best of my knowledge — a covert operative, I would be committing no crime were I to name him in this piece. Nor, I should add, did he attempt to hide his employment when we sat across a dinner table some months ago."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/24/AR2005102401690_pf.html
[FONT=helvetica,arial][SIZE=-1]washingtonpost.com[/SIZE][/FONT] .correction
Correction to This Article
An Oct. 25 article incorrectly said President Bush asserted during his January 2003 State of the Union message that Iraq was seeking nuclear material in
Niger. The president said that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had sought significant quantities of uranium in
Africa.
[SIZE=+2]
Husband Is Conspicuous in Leak Case[/SIZE]
Wilson's Credibility Debated as Charges In Probe Considered
"To his backers, Joseph C. Wilson IV is a brave whistle-blower wronged by the Bush administration. To his critics, he is a partisan who spouts unreliable information."
"He published a book, "The Politics of Truth: Inside the Lies that Led to War and Betrayed My Wife's CIA Identity." He persuaded his wife, Valerie Plame, to appear with him in a January 2004 Vanity Fair photo spread, in which the two appeared in his Jaguar convertible."
"Now, amid speculation that prosecutors could bring charges against White House officials this week, Republicans preparing a defense of the administration are reviving the debate about Wilson's credibility and integrity."
"Wilson's publicity efforts -- and his work for Sen. John F. Kerry's presidential campaign -- have complicated his efforts to portray himself as a whistle-blower and a husband angry about the treatment of his wife."
"The Vanity Fair photos, in particular, hurt Plame's reputation inside the CIA; both Wilson and Plame have said they now regret doing the photo shoot."
"Wilson's critics in the administration said his 2002 trip to Niger for the CIA to probe reports that Iraq was trying to buy uranium there was a boondoggle arranged by his wife to help his consulting business."
"Wilson has also armed his critics by misstating some aspects of the Niger affair. For example, Wilson told The Washington Post anonymouslyin June 2003 that he had concluded that the intelligence about the Niger uranium was based on forged documents because "the dates were wrong and the names were wrong."
"The Senate intelligence committee, which examined pre-Iraq war intelligence, reported that Wilson "had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports." Wilson had to admit he had misspoken."
"That inaccuracy was not central to Wilson's claims about Niger, but his critics have used it to cast doubt on his veracity about more important questions, such as whether his wife recommended him for the 2002 trip, as administration officials charged in the conversations with reporters that special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald is now probing. Wilson has maintained that Plame was merely "a conduit," telling CNN last year that "her supervisors asked her to contact me."
"But the Senate committee found that "interviews and documents provided to the committee indicate that his wife . . . suggested his name for the trip." The committee also noted a memorandum from Plame saying Wilson "has good relations" with Niger officials who "could possibly shed light on this sort of activity."
"In addition, notes on a State Department document surmised that Plame "had the idea to dispatch him" to Niger.
The CIA has always said, however, that Plame's superiors chose Wilson for the Niger trip and she only relayed their decision."
"Wilson also had charged that his report on Niger clearly debunked the claim about Iraqi uranium purchases. He told NBC in 2004: "This government knew that there was nothing to these allegations." But the Senate committee said his findings were ambiguous. Tenet said Wilson's report "did not resolve" the matter."
"On another item of dispute -- whether Vice President Cheney's office inspired the Wilson trip to Niger --
Wilson had said the CIA told him he was being sent to Niger so they could "provide a response to the vice president's office," which wanted more information on the report that Iraq was seeking uranium there. Tenet said the CIA's counterproliferation experts sent Wilson "on their own initiative."
Wilson said in a recent interview: "I never said the vice president sent me or ordered me sent."
