From information in the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s July 7, 2004, Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq: “In a statement where [Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Pat] Roberts [R-KS] was joined by Republican senators Christopher S. Bond [MO] and Orrin G. Hatch [UT], he wrote: ‘In an interview with Committee staff, [former ambassador] Mr. [Joe] Wilson was asked how he knew some things he was stating publicly with such confidence [in reference to his July 6, 2003 New York Times op-ed]. On at least two occasions he admitted that he had no direct knowledge to support some of his claims and that he was drawing on either unrelated past experiences or no information at all. For example, when asked how he ‘knew’ that the Intelligence Community had rejected the possibility of a Niger-Iraq uranium deal, as he wrote in his book [The Politics of Truth], he told Committee staff that his assertion may have involved *a little literary flair.* The former Ambassador, either by design or through ignorance, gave the American people and, for that matter, the world a version of events that was inaccurate, unsubstantiated, and misleading.’ Wilson later admitted himself that he had nothing to do with disproving the so-called Italian forgeries and had ‘misspoken.’ ”
– Karl Rove, Courage and Consequence, Pages 324-325