So we come to find out that the source of the Niger intel was an Italian journalist? Her paper, Panorama, refused to run with the story because the document seemed fake.
And to top it off, the owner of said weekly is Silvio Berlusconi, who is currently 'clearing brush' in Crawford with our favorite blow dried cowboy as we speak.

Body and Soul, Calpundit, and the Associated Press, via LA Times have the story.

Corriere della Sera, an Italian daily, quoted Elisabetta Burba as saying her source "in the past proved to be reliable." Burba, who writes for the weekly Panorama, refused to reveal her source.

"I realized that this could be a worldwide scoop, but that's exactly why I was very worried," Burba was quoted as saying. "If it turned out to be a hoax and I published it, I would have ended my career."

I wonder if it's forgery-nature will end someone's career?

Corriere della Sera quoted the journalist as saying she went to Niger to try to check out the authenticity of the documents. Burba told the paper that she was suspicious because the documents spoke of such a large amount of uranium — 500 tons — and were short on details on how it would be transported and arrangements for final delivery.

On her return, she said, she told Panorama's top editor that "the story seemed fake to me." After discussions at the magazine, which is owned by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Burba brought the documents to the U.S. Embassy.

"I went by myself and give them the dossier. No one said anything more to me, and in any case the decision not to publish it was already taken — with no further way to check out the reliability of those papers, we chose not to risk" it, she said.

It's nice to know that our President's State of the Union addresses have a lower standard of accountability than an Italian tabloid.