Joseph Wilson, 2004 News

Joseph Wilson, former ambassador, was partially discredited in July with the release of the Senate Intelligence Committee report. Wilson visited Niger in February 2002 to investigate a claim that Saddam Hussein was pursuing a nuclear weapons program by seeking to obtain uranium from Niger. The panel found that “rather than speaking publicly about his actual experiences during his inquiry of the Niger issue, [Wilson] seems to have included information he learned from press accounts and from his beliefs about how the Intelligence Community would have or should have handled the information he provided.” In 2003, columnist Robert Novak identified Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as a CIA agent who specializes in weapons of mass destruction. Wilson believes the Bush administration leaked his wife's name as retribution. The Justice Department has been investigating the leak, interviewing members of the Bush administration and the media to find the source of the leak. Revealing the names of CIA operatives is considered a felony.