A New York Times article on May 6, 2003, “by Nicholas Kristof, bore the headline ‘Missing in Action: Truth.’ Noting that no weapons had been found in Iraq, Kristof suggested the White House had ignored evidence that they were never there. Reprising the sixteen words in the State of the Union about the Niger intelligence, Kristof reported that ‘the vice president’s [Dick Cheney’s] office asked for an investigation of the uranium deal, so a former U.S. ambassador to Africa was dispatched to Niger.’ The ambassador reported that ‘the information was unequivocally wrong and that the documents had been forged.’ Kristof was referring to the former ambassador Joseph Wilson, whom he had met days earlier at a Democratic conclave. Wilson, the unnamed source in the column, had exaggerated to Kristof some of the details: he had never seen the documents he supposedly debunked, for example, and congressional investigators later concluded that the results of his trip were not as unequivocal as he averred. Even so, Kristof’s reference set in motion a chain of events that would call into question the [Bush] administration’s credibility on the central justification of the war, sow division and mistrust within the White House, and permanently damage the friendship between Bush and Cheney.”
– Peter Baker, Days of Fire, Page 273