(Washington, D.C.)  A longstanding Bush administration scandal came to a head last week when it was revealed that White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove disclosed the identity of an undercover CIA employee, Valerie Plame, to a Time reporter.  Opponents of the Bush administration claim that Mrs. Plame's occupation was leaked in retaliation after her husband, Ambassador Joe Wilson, spoke out against claims made by President Bush in his 2003 State of the Union speech.

In the speech, Bush uttered what are now known as the infamous 16 words: "The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” 

While on its face the statement was true -- the British government had made such a claim -- much of the evidence backing the claim was based upon a fake document relating to the sale of "yellowcake" from Niger to Iraq.

The Senate committee investigating Iraq pre-war intelligence stated that the CIA should have more thoroughly vetted the document to verify its authenticity. After Bush's speech, the CIA admitted in an internal document that "we no longer believe that there is sufficient other reporting to conclude that Iraq pursued uranium from abroad."

Then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice further admitted, "Knowing what we now know, that some of the Niger documents were apparently forged, we wouldn't have put this in the President's speech."

Ambassador Wilson, a strong critic of the Bush administration, pointed out the inconsistencies between Bush's statement and the truth.  As a result, it is believed by many that the White House retaliated against Wilson by "outing" his wife as an undercover CIA employee.