“Did the Bush administration manipulate intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons programs to justify an invasion of Iraq?
Based on my experience with the administration in the months leading up to the war, I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.”

-Joseph C Wilson IV
“What I Didn’t Find In Africa”, New York Times, July 6, 2003

Position: U.S. Foreign Service Diplomat
Tenure: 1976-1998

Joseph Wilson is best known for his op-ed essay in the New York Times on July 6, 2003, in which he accused the Bush administration of exaggerating the Iraqi threat in order to justify going to war. Having served as the Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad in during George H. W. Bush’s presidency, he had been hailed as “truly inspiring” and “courageous” by the former president after sheltering more than one hundred Americans at the embassy, despite Saddam Hussein’s order to embassies in Baghdad to execute anyone who refused to hand over foreigners. In 1990, he was the last American diplomat to meet with Hussein.

Due to his many years of diplomatic service in Sub-Saharan Africa, Wilson was seen as an expert in this area and was sent by the CIA to investigate reports that Iraq had sought yellowcake uranium from Niger. Wilson reported that the story was unfounded, yet in the 2003 State of the Union message, President Bush still told the American public, “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” Wilson went public in the New York Times essay entitled “What I Didn’t Find in Africa.” What he did find was that Iraq had attempted to increase its foreign trade with Niger. It was assumed that uranium, Niger’s chief export, was what Iraq was seeking. However, that assumption was refuted by multiple sources. Nigerian uranium mines are run by a consortium of French, Spanish, Japanese, German and Nigerian businesses and overseen by the International Atomic Energy Commission, and Wilson concluded that there was “too much oversight” for a sale to have occurred without these parties’ knowledge.

A Senate Intelligence Committee Report of July 7, 2004, challenged some of Wilson’s statements but not the essentials of his report. Rather, it focused on why Wilson had been sent to Iraq and whether his wife, covert CIA agent Valerie Plame, had a role in his mission. This became significant later when Plame’s position was exposed, sparking an investigation into various government officials who may have revealed her identity to reporters illegally in retribution for Wilson’s article. Bush administration officials said Wilson had publicly talked about his wife’s role in the CIA, but the credibility of those allegations was later severely undermined. Lewis Libby, Chief of Staff to Vice President Cheney, was ultimately indicted as a result of the investigation.

In 2004 Wilson published a book, The Politics of Truth: Inside the Lies that Led to War and Betrayed My Wife’s CIA Identity. The book gives an autobiographical account of Wilson’s extensive government service and his decision to go public with criticism of the Bush White House.