From the outset, Joseph Wilson IV has insisted he was sent to Niger at the Vice President's behest. As more facts about the trip became known and the Vice President vehemently denied this claim, the scenario appeared that the CIA sent him after Cheney raised a question in an intelligence report, and that the Vice President was utterly unaware of the Mission to Africa. This notion was reinforced when the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) reported that the agency managed to act remarkably quickly, approving the trip so close in time after the inquiry.But we have just learned in the course of the Libby Trial that even that timeline is wrong: (a) Plame recommended her husband for this trip before the vice president even asked about the report;(b) the SSCI never knew this because the CIA never turned over her memorandum of recommendation to the committee.Why did the agency hold back this information and allow this misstatement of fact to sit on the public record for so long?...(Read Full Post)