I KEEP READING IN AGREEMENT what people like Christopher Hitchens, and today John Leo write about the Wilson / Plame / uranium / Niger kerfuffle. It's true that the Butler report in the UK corroborated that the suspicion that Saddam was trying to buy yellowcake from Niger was not a wild speculation, even less a lie.

But, doesn't anybody remember what was in page 122 of the mentioned Butler report?

494. There was further and separate intelligence that in 1999 the Iraqi regime had also made inquiries about the purchase of uranium ore in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In this case, there was some evidence that by 2002 an agreement for a sale had been reached.

Reached. It's not that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger. It's that they had closed a deal with Congo; presumably not shipped, but what does it matter for the case against Saddam? Why isn't Blair, and the Bush administration, not shouting this from the rooftops?

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