I'd rather avoid the hypotheticals myself.
There's too little known and too much he-said/they-said in this case.
From the excerpt and my skimming of the rest of the Senate report, it seems that Cheney didn't insist for a followup on the Iraq-Niger report. Why? I don't know. The tone of the Senate report is that Wilson's trip didn't really add any thing new to what was already known and/or suspected.
AFAIK, Wilson was only attacked after he went to the Post with his story - a story that was wrong in the very least in many, possibly minor, details.
According to the Senate report (above), the Niger uranium story first came to the attention of the CIA on October 15, 2001. There was a second report to the CIA with more details on February 5, 2002. The CIA wrote a report about it on February 12, 2002 and Cheney read it. The same day Cheney asked for more information and Plame wrote a memo suggesting Wilson. He left for Niger on February 21, 2002. He arrived on February 26, 2002.
The State Department intelligence agency (INR) prepared a report on March 1, 2002 titled, "Niger: Sale of Uranium to Iraq is Unlikely." The CIA disagreed with that assessment.
Cheney requested more information on the Iraq-Niger issue in "early March". Cheney was updated and Wilson was debriefed on March 5, 2002. Wilson's report was distributed on March 8, 2002.
The British government report stating that Iraq had tried to buy uranium in Africa was dated September 24, 2002.
The fake Niger uranium documents were given to the US Embassy in Rome on October 9, 2002. The INR immediately thought they were fake. They were distributed to the CIA and other agencies, but were filed away and nothing more was done with them there.
November 22, 2002 there was a meeting with a French intelligence official who said they believed they had reliable information indicating Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger.
Wilson was the source for the June 12, 2003 Washington Post [link|http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A46957-2003Jun11?language=printer|article] by Walter Pincus. (It's dated June 13 in the Senate report.)
Novak's [link|http://www.townhall.com/columnists/robertnovak/rn20030714.shtml|article] on Wilson and Plame was July 14, 2003.
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Obviously, none of us were there and we didn't see what happened when. And there are ways to make even a saint look like he's being shifty or lying. But I'm inclined to take the Senate report at face value.
A lot of the reporting on the Iraq uranium story has been terribly muddled. A lot of the reporting (including Pincus's) seems to indicate that the reporter believed that since the Niger documents in Rome were fake, then there was no evidence that Saddam wanted uranium from Niger (or somewhere else in Africa). I believe, and I think the Senate report gives some weight to the belief, Saddam was looking for ways to get uranium from Africa, but that it never went beyond initial probing.
It seems to me that Pincus's article makes it clear that Wilson helped throw the first bucket of mud in this particular scandal. He and a couple of other unnamed officials made lots of damning claims. Someone or some group at the White House fought back in an extremely dirty way. But Wilson's hands aren't clean. Subsequent [link|http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39834-2004Jul9.html|reports] in the press have pointed out inconsistencies his story.
So, in summary, I agree with Beep. Rove should go (even if he didn't do the leaking initially), and anyone else in the White House involved in planting the story about Plame should go too. I don't think that they could be convicted (due to the very narrow way the rule is written), but they shouldn't be serving in a position of trust in the US government.
I sure hope the Grand Jury finishes up soon.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
