The Mean Girls administration

But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.

In February of 2003, Joe Wilson went to Niger to verify information about a suspected link between Africa and Iraq - specifically, an agreement that Niger would provide uranium yellowcake to Iraq.

In his New York Times op-ed, Mr. Wilson tells that after meeting with various officians and people associated with the uranium business, he determined that no such transaction had ever taken place. Anyone wishing to purchase uranium would have had to go through a complicated process involving a consortium of nations. In addition, the U.S. Ambassador to Niger stated that she thought she had already debunked the Memorandum of Agreement that prompted Mr. Wilson's visit.

Mr. Wilson reporting his findings to the CIA when he returned from Niger.

The White House was instructed by the CIA that the links between Niger and Iraq were dubious. More than once. Nevertheless, in January of 2003, President Bush includes sixteen words in his State of the Union speech: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.

By March of 2003, the documents that indicated the sale of uranium yellowcake were proven to be forgeries. Nevertheless, Bush took us to war against Iraq.

Mr. Wilson's op-ed was published on July 6, 2003. Within a week of the publication of Mr. Wilson's Op-ed, his wife Valerie Plame was outed as a covert CIA agent.

Tomorrow is the 3 year anniversary of the meeting at Downing Street that was recounted in the Downing Street Memo. Three years since Matthew Rycroft took minutes at a meeting between the U.S. and the U.K. to discuss Iraq.

But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.

It's not difficult to use common sense to put some pieces together. Prior to his Niger trip, Mr. Wilson was told that the Vice President's office was interested in finding out about the uraniaum. Mr. Wilson made his report. Despite Mr. Wilson's finding, and despite the U.N. inspectors reports that there were no WMDs, Bush took our military and sent them to war in Iraq.

Mr. Wilson came forward to tell how he thought the Bush administration was using debunked information when building his case for war. Based on Mr. Wilson's report, the White House knew that the "sixteen words" Bush used in the SOTU address was a lie.

What does the Bush administration do when someone crosses them? Ask Richard Clarke. Ask Paul O'Neill. They are the Mean Girls administration, sliming and smearing all who oppose them. They outed a covert CIA agent, an action that clearly hurts our national security, to get back at someone who was telling the truth about them.

They hurt our national security for political expediency. They lie to get a war. They must be stopped.