Knight Ridder knows about the Niger Forgeries.

Knight Ridder makes their working theory of how the Niger forgeries ended up in the US intelligence stream pretty clear. They imply the who, the what, the how, and the why.

-Italy's military intelligence agency, SISMI, and people close to it, repeatedly tried to shop the bogus Niger uranium story to governments in France, Britain and the United States. That created the illusion that multiple sources were confirming the story. ....

-State Department intelligence analysts and some in the CIA discounted the uranium story. But White House officials, working through a back channel to one CIA unit, seized on the tale, and it was included in Bush's case for war.

The following is a chronology of events that led up to the indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff.....

Sept. 9 - With the White House's public campaign against Iraq in full swing, Nicolo Pollari, head of SISMI, met with then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley at the White House. Hadley later took the blame for including the false Niger allegation in Bush's 2003 State of the Union speech.

Some sort of congressional investigation into this is reason enough for me to vote Democrat in the upcoming midterms. Frist has already made clear that he will not look into the Plame leak. For true accountability, control of the House or Senate is going to have to change parties.

Also related are the reports that Berlusconi claims that the meeting was between Condi Rice and Pollari, and that Hadley just happened to stop by. This is being put out by Berlusconi's office.

And to indict Berlusconi's credibility, I offer exhibit A.

Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, one of President Bush's strongest supporters over Iraq, says he tried repeatedly to dissuade the American leader from going to war and was never convinced military force was the best way to bring democracy.

LIAR.