For months, Last Days has ignored the storm of speculation brewing over senior Bush advisor Karl Rove's role and motive in the leaking of a CIA operative's name to the press. Hence the decision to eschew the week's hilarious tragedies, tragic hilarities, and freakishly numerous Boy Scout deaths in favor of guest expert Eli Sanders's episodic anatomy of the entire Rove/CIA scandal, from the instigating incident in the winter of 2002 to the fresh batch of shit that stunk up last week. Enjoy! —David Schmader

FEBRUARY, 2002 Our scandal begins on a midwinter morning in Washington, D.C., with Vice President Dick Cheney sitting down for his morning intelligence briefing. The VP is particularly intrigued by a report saying the small West African nation of Niger has plans to sell 500 tons of uranium to Iraq, likely for use by Saddam Hussein in building an arsenal of nuclear weapons. Cheney makes it clear that he wants to hear more.

MARCH 5, 2002 Former U.S. ambassador Joseph Wilson, having been swiftly dispatched by the CIA to check out the Niger claim, returns from West Africa to brief the agency. Wilson, an expert in African affairs, tells the CIA that the Niger uranium claim is totally bogus.

JULY 23, 2002 With talk of a war against Iraq still circulating, a secret memo is passed among top British officials. Eventually leaked to the media, the "Downing Street Memo" says President Bush is eager "to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD," and that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

JANUARY 28, 2003 In his State of the Union address, Bush lays out his case for attacking Iraq and includes the discredited Niger report, saying: "Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." The president warns of a nuclear nightmare. "We will do everything in our power to make sure that that day never comes," he says, speaking to a population of which 70 percent will come to believe, erroneously, that Iraq had something to do with the 9/11 attacks.

MARCH 19, 2003 Bush declares war on Iraq, calling the campaign "Operation Iraqi Freedom" and the bombing spree "shock and awe."

MAY 1, 2003 Appearing on an aircraft carrier in a crotch-enhancing flight suit, Bush declares the end of major combat operations in Iraq. A banner behind him reads, "Mission Accomplished." More than two years later, with American soldiers still dying in Iraq, the toll of American dead will stand at 1,780.

MAY 6, 2003 With no weapons of mass destruction—nuclear or otherwise—discovered in Iraq, an angry Joseph Wilson reappears to tell a New York Times columnist that administration officials knew the Niger uranium claim was untrue. The Washington Post later reports that this anonymous leak by Wilson "caught the attention of officials inside Cheney's office."

FIRST WEEK OF JUNE, 2003 The CIA receives a call from a reporter asking about Wilson's trip to West Africa. Later, a government memo about the trip is created and circulated. It notes that Wilson's wife is a covert CIA agent named Valerie Plame, but also notes that this information is secret. The memo makes its way to the State Department, where, according to Time magazine, by mid-June it is read by Colin Powell, then Secretary of State.

JUNE 12, 2003 The Washington Post runs a front-page story featuring more anonymous quotes—since attributed to Joseph Wilson—about the misuse of U.S. intelligence. According to Time, this spurs "general discussion" about Wilson's Niger trip among officials in the CIA, the White House, the National Security Council, and the State Department.

JULY 6, 2003 Joseph Wilson goes public, writing in the New York Times, "Some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons programs was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat." The White House dismisses the revelation. A few hours later, it says Bush no longer stands by the Niger claim. Soon after, Bush leaves on a trip to Africa.

JULY 8, 2003 Conservative columnist Robert Novak calls top Bush advisor Karl Rove to tell him he's heard it was Ambassador Wilson's wife who arranged the Niger trip. What Novak has heard isn't exactly true; Wilson's wife recommended Wilson for the job because of his Africa expertise, but it was her superiors who approved the trip. However, this is where the potentially criminal aspect of the scandal begins, because it is a federal crime to reveal the identity of a covert CIA agent. Rove, apparently trying to smear Wilson as having gotten his assignment through nepotism, reportedly tells Novak, "I heard that too," confirming Plame's identity.

JULY 9, 2003 In South Africa, Bush tells reporters: "Look, I am confident that Saddam Hussein had a weapons-of-mass-destruction program." By his next State of the Union address, in 2004, Bush will be much less confident, believing only in the existence of "weapons-of-mass-destruction-related program activities."

JULY 11, 2003 CIA Director George J. Tenet takes the blame for the wayward info, saying the CIA should never have allowed the uranium allegation into Bush's speech. Also on this day, Karl Rove tells Time's Matthew Cooper that Wilson's wife works for the CIA and sent him to Niger. The next day Cheney's top aide, Lewis Libby, confirms this to Cooper.

JULY 14, 2003 Columnist Robert Novak outs Valerie Plame as a CIA agent. The CIA, believing a crime may have been committed by whoever leaked Plame's identity to Novak, asks the Justice Department to investigate. Under pressure, then–Attorney General John Ashcroft appoints an independent special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, to investigate. Fitzgerald is a tough attorney from Chicago whose previous experience includes prosecuting members of the mob.

JULY 22, 2003 Bush's new spokesman, Scott McClellan, denies White House officials were involved in leaking Plame's identity: "I'm telling you flatly that that is not the way this White House operates." Later he will specifically deny that Karl Rove or Lewis Libby were involved. Later still, Bush will say anyone involved in the leak will be fired. (All of these statements will later prove to be, as they said during Watergate, "inoperative.")

NOVEMBER 2004 Bush is reelected, owing his victory largely to his reputation as a bold leader who protects the nation's security.

JUNE TO JULY 2005 Things heat up as an October deadline for special prosecutor Fitzgerald to seek indictments in the leak case approaches. Judith Miller, a reporter for the New York Times, is sent to jail for refusing to talk to Fitzgerald about a conversation she may have had related to the outing, while Time's Matthew Cooper escapes jail through a complicated dance that involves a waiver from Rove, which allows Cooper to testify. Cooper then writes about the experience for Time, triggering a cascade of damning revelations that are still being parsed by the media. The White House stops commenting, and anonymous CIA sources begin putting the blame for the faulty intelligence back on the administration, suggesting high-level mendacity that, if true, could eventually undo the Bush administration.

JULY 26, 2005 Nothing happened today. Unless you count the publication of a USA Today poll showing that for the first time, a majority of Americans (51 percent) believe "the Bush administration deliberately misled the public about whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction."

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