Why is President Bush saying that he wanted to declassify the National Intelligence Estimate to rebut critics on the Niger-uranium story with the "truth" when the NIE actually provides more evidence that the critics are right and he is wrong? Because Bush doesn't know what the NIE really says and he never did. He thinks it backs him up when it doesn't.
Consider: when Bush ordered that the NIE be leaked to selected friendly reporters, he must have believed it bolstered his case. On the one hand, he might has directed Cheney to leak only portions that would give the false impression that the Niger-uranium story was true and widely believed within the government, including the CIA. On the other, Bush might have just said, 'Well just leak the NIE, it shows that we're right.'
If the former is true, Bush was ordering leaks that were intentionally deceptive. If the latter was true, Bush had no idea what the NIE actually said, and Cheney, Libby, and others were the ones engaged in the deception. Furthermore, if the latter was true, Cheney, Libby, and others weren't just deceiving reporters about the true findings of the NIE, they were deceiving the President. And if they were deceiving the President, there is another motivation to their campaign to smear Wilson: to prevent the President from finding out the truth.
Where does Bush get his information? Did he ever read the NIE cover to cover? Or was it summarized for him? Who provided that summary? Was that summary an accurate portrayal of the NIE's "key judgments" -- or was it a distortion?
Based on President Bush's recent statements on the matter, I'm not convinced that he truly knows what the NIE's conclusions were -- even now. It appears he still thinks it backs up the Niger-uranium claim. It's time for some citizen to ask President Bush straightforwardly: What exactly does he believe the "key judgments" of National Intelligence Estimate that he declassified say about Saddam Hussein trying to buy uranium in Niger? Does he know what the NIE really says?