Joe Wilson, skeptic on Iraq War intelligence, dies at age 69

SANTA FE, N.M. — Joseph Wilson, the former ambassador who set off a political firestorm by disputing U.S. intelligence used to justify the 2003 Iraq invasion, died Friday, according to his exwife. He was 69.

Wilson died of organ failure in Santa Fe, said his former wife, Valerie Plame, whose identity as a CIA operative was exposed days after Wilson’s criticism of U.S. intelligence that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was attempting to purchase uranium.

The leak of Plame’s covert identity was a scandal for the administration of President George W. Bush that led to the conviction of vice presidential aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby for lying to investigators and obstruction of justice. President Donald Trump pardoned Libby in 2018.

Plame, who is running as a Democrat for Congress — in part as a Trump adversary — called Wilson “a true American hero, a patriot, and had the heart of a lion.” Plame and Wilson moved to Santa Fe in 2007 to raise twin children and divorced in 2017.

In 2002, Wilson traveled to the African country of Niger to investigate allegations that Hussein was attempting to purchase uranium, which could have been used to make nuclear weapons.

Plame’s identity with the CIA was revealed in a newspaper column days after Wilson said in an opinion piece in The New York Times that the Bush administration twisted prewar intelligence on Iraq to justify going to war. Wilson later accused administration officials and political operatives of putting his family at risk.

Wilson was a Bridgeport, Conn., native.

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