| In or Out of speeches (or advice to do so) | Date | Timeline for the Niger/Africa/yellowcake story (derived from information at Altercation and Time) |
| | Early 1980's | Iraq made two purchases of uranium oxide from Niger totaling more than 300 tons. |
| | 1991 | Iraq's nuclear-weapons program was dismantled after the first Gulf War. |
| | late 2001 | The Italian government came into possession of evidence suggesting that Iraq was again trying to purchase yellowcake from Niger. |
| | early 2002 | The Vice President asked a question about the implication of the Italian report. |
| | Feb 2002 | Joe Wilson IV dispatched to check out the story. Spends eight days in Niger. |
| Out | late Feb 2002 | The State Department's intelligence arm had sent a memo directly to Secretary of State Colin Powell that also disputed the Italian intelligence. |
| Out | Mar 2002 | Wilson gave an oral report about his trip to both CIA and State Department officials. |
| Out | 9 Mar 2002 | CIA circulated a memo on the yellowcake story that was sent to the White House, summarizing Wilson's assessment. |
| Doubts | Sep 2002 | After Tenet left a closed hearing on Capitol Hill, the nuclear question arose, and a lower-ranking official admitted to the lawmakers that the agency had doubts about the veracity of the evidence. |
| Out | Sep 2002 | The CIA tried to persuade the British government to drop the allegation completely |
| In with caveats | Sep 2002 | CIA officials included the Brits' yellowcake story in their classified 90-page National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's weapons programs. The CIA said it could neither verify the Niger story nor "confirm whether Iraq succeeded in acquiring uranium ore and/or yellowcake" from two other African nations. The agency also included the State Department's concerns that the allegations of Iraq's seeking yellowcake were "highly dubious"—though that assessment was printed only as a footnote. |
| Out | Oct 2002 | Tenet personally intervened with National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice's deputy, Stephen Hadley, to remove a line about the African ore in a speech that Bush was giving in Cincinnati, |
| In | Dec 2002 | The State Department included the Niger claim in its public eight-point rebuttal to the 12,200-page arms declaration that Iraq made to the U.N. two weeks earlier. |
| | Dec 2002 | When the International Atomic Energy Agency, a U.N. group, asked the U.S. for data to back up its claim in December, Washington sat tight and said little for six weeks.” |
| In | Jan 2003 | In an op-ed column in The New York Times titled “Why We Know Iraq Is Lying,” top Bush aide Rice appeared to repeat the yellowcake claim, saying, ‘The declaration fails to account for or explain Iraq’s efforts to get uranium from abroad.’ |
| Out | Jan 2003 | A top cia analyst named Alan Foley objected to including the allegation in the speech. |
| In | Jan 2003 | CIA allegedly allowed it back in the Jan. 28 State of the Union |
| Out | Feb 2003 | Colin Powell omitted any reference to the uranium when he briefed the U.N. Security Council. |
| In | Feb 2003 | The State Department-funded Voice of America broadcast a story on Feb. 20, claiming, “U.S. officials tell VOA [that] Iraq and Niger signed an agreement in the summer of 2000 to resume shipments for an additional 500 tons of yellow cake,” |
