So far, no responses from reporters who’ve gotten my “Open Letter to the Press.” But the responses from readers and other bloggers have indicated a great deal of dissatisfaction with the way the press is whitewashing Wilson’s credibility issues. To its credit, the Washington Post takes a look at some of those issues today. But as several readers pointed out, the Post article is muddled, to say the least, on the canard that Wilson debunked the intelligence that Saddam sought to purchase uranium from Niger. The Post reports:

Wilson’s central assertion — disputing President Bush’s 2003 State of the Union claim that Iraq was seeking nuclear material in Niger — has been validated by postwar weapons inspections.

but subsequently contradicts itself:

Wilson also had charged that his report on Niger clearly debunked the claim about Iraqi uranium purchases. He told NBC in 2004: “This government knew that there was nothing to these allegations.” But the Senate committee said his findings were ambiguous. Tenet said Wilson’s report “did not resolve” the matter.

The Post does not report why the Senate Intelligence Committee said Wilson’s findings were ambiguous. It’s because the committee found out that Wilson told his CIA debriefers:

that during his Niger trip, he spoke to the country’s former prime minister, who told him that members of an Iraqi delegation in the late 1990s expressed interest in expanded commercial contacts with Niger. The former prime minister told Wilson that he interpreted the comment to mean that Iraq was interested in buying uranium, although the word ‘uranium’ was not mentioned in the Iraqis’ conversation, he said. The prime minister, fearful of United Nations sanctions that prevented trade with Iraq at the time, dropped the subject, Wilson reported.

Indeed, what else would Saddam have wanted from Niger? It’s only exports besides uranium are livestock, cowpeas and onions. In trying to edify Wilson’s deceptions for its readers, the Post treads too lightly and ends up just muddling the details.