And while we're on the subject
One puzzling aspect of the Niger uranium bunfight is why Joe Wilson, retired member of the State Department goof troup and former Clinton National Security Council official, was sent to Niger by the CIA to do a comedic turn as a "spy". I mean, the British are laughing at him:

"He seems to have asked a few people if it was true and when they said 'no' he accepted it all," one official said.

which was pretty much his own description in his NY Times piece. Why send this tea party warrior to do a real job?

Terrence Jeffrey explains it in Our Man in Niger:

So, who is this Wilson? He's our man in Niger.

Well, almost. Wilson is a retired State Department official. As charge d'affaires in Iraq in 1990, he was the last American diplomat to meet with Saddam. Later, he served as ambassador to Gabon and Sao Tome and Principe. His most important credential for this controversy dates to the mid-1970s, when he served as a diplomat in Niger. In the late 1990s, as an official with President Clinton's National Security Council, he made a return visit to Niger.

These experiences apparently made Wilson America's greatest expert on Nigerien uranium exports.

Uh oh, I see it coming.

But the real scandal isn't whether the British were right or wrong about Iraq's interest in buying Nigerien uranium (the British stand by their conclusion). The real scandal is why the CIA had to rely on a retired State Department official to travel to Niger to double-check British intelligence about Niger's uranium.

If proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is a significant security risk to the United States, then mines in Africa that produce uranium that can be used in weapons of mass destruction should be significant targets of U.S. intelligence gathering.

They haven't been.

After a July 15 press conference, in the presence of other reporters, I asked House Intelligence Chairman Porter Goss, R-Fla., if the diminution of CIA personnel in Africa in the 1990s hurt our ability to track Niger's uranium industry.

"Yes, that's part of the problem," Goss said.

Jeffrey: "Part of the problem is that we diminished our CIA presence in Africa?"

Goss: "Yes, that is absolutely accurate."

Jeffrey: "During the Clinton years?"

Goss: "Yes. It happened to be in those years when he was the president. That is correct."

Well, golly! Maybe they needed more manpower tracking down potential playmates for the Pres.