Murray's timeline goes something like this:

May 6, 2003: Kristof's New York Times column reporting that an unnamed official had traveled to Niger in 2002 and disputed the Iraq-Niger connection.

Kristof wrote that the ex-ambassador reported back to the CIA and the State Department that the allegations were "unequivocally wrong" and "based on forged documents."

May 29: Libby asked then-Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman for information about the unnamed official's trip to Niger.

Grossman in turn assigned the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research to prepare a report on the matter. Cheney's and Libby's interest in the issue led Tenet to seek more information as well.

On June 11 or 12, according to the grand jury indictment of Libby, Grossman reported back that "in sum and substance Wilson's wife worked at the CIA, and the State Department personnel were saying that Wilson's wife was involved in the planning of his trip." Libby's indictment states.

Cheney and Libby also asked Tenet for more information on the unnamed ambassador and his trip to Niger.

"On or about June 12, 2003," the indictment stated, "Libby was advised by the Vice President of the United States that Wilson's wife worked at the Central Intelligence Agency in the Counterproliferation Division. Libby understood that the Vice President had learned this information from the CIA."

Also on June 12, Walter Pincus wrote of the unnamed official's trip to Niger. Pincus writes that "a senior intelligence official" told him:

"This gent made a visit to the region and chatted up his friends," a senior intelligence official said, describing the agency's view of the mission. "He relayed back to us that they said it was not true and that he believed them."

Also in June, Tenet, having been questioned about Niger and the official's trip to Africa by Libby and Cheney, requested information from CIA analysts. On June 17, the CIA analysts sent a classified memo to Tenet, debunking the claim that Iraq was acquiring uranium for Niger.

"Since learning that the Iraqi-Niger uranium deal was based on false documents earlier this spring, we no longer believe that there is sufficient other reporting to conclude that Iraq purchased uranium from abroad."

Murray reports Tenet shared the memo with Libby and Cheney.

On June 23, Libby meets with Judith Miller and tells her Wilson's wife worked for the CIA, which was classified information. On July 6, Wilson went public with his op-ed in the New York Times and appearing on Meet the Press, hosted that day by Andrea Mitchell.

On July 8, Libby meets again with Judith Miller.

During a two-hour breakfast at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington, according to testimony Miller gave to the federal grand jury hearing evidence in the CIA leak case, Libby first told her that Plame worked for the CIA's Weapons, Intelligence, Nonproliferation, and Arms Control Office.

Murray's timeline for his new article ends there. I'll keep going.

Also on July 8, Karl Rove discussed Plame and Wilson with Robert Novak. Another White House official (whom I suspect is Ari Fleischer) also leaked the information to various reporters. Fleischer left for Africa with Bush, Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice during the evening of July 7. Earlier that day, Libby and Flesicher had lunch together. Fitz early on subpoenaed the phone records for Air Force One.

On July 11, Cooper speaks to Rove and George Tenet issues his statement taking responsibility for the Niger claim in the state of the union address. Also on July 11, Rove emails Stephen Hadley about his converstation with Cooper and says, "I didn't take the bait."

Novak's column did not appear until July 14. On July 12, Cheney, Libby and Catherine Martin flew to Charlotte. The Washington Post has reported:

On July 12, the day Cheney and Libby flew together from Norfolk, the vice president instructed his aide to alert reporters of an attack launched that morning on Wilson's credibility by Fleischer, according to a well-placed source.

Upon Libby's return from Norfolk that day he telephoned Matthew Cooper. I wrote here:

It sure sounds to me like the mechanics of the plan to leak the information about Wilson was cemented, if not formed, on Air Force Two, as a follow up to Ari Fleischer's press gaggle attack on Wilson from Africa, and that the plan was to call reporters and leak the information about Wilson and his wife as gossip coming from other reporters, while shielding themselves by claiming to the reporters that they couldn't be certain the information was true.

Also on July 12, Pincus received information from an Administration official:

On July 12, two days before Novak's column, a Post reporter was told by an administration official that the White House had not paid attention to the former ambassador's CIA-sponsored trip to Niger because it was set up as a boondoggle by his wife, an analyst with the agency working on weapons of mass destruction. Plame's name was never mentioned and the purpose of the disclosure did not appear to be to generate an article, but rather to undermine Wilson's report.

Pincus later disclosed he was referring to himself. Murray writes:

As Libby awaits trial, one of the unresolved mysteries is why Libby insisted in interviews with the FBI and during his grand jury testimony that he learned about Plame's employment from journalists, when investigators already had Libby's own copious notes indicating that he had first learned many of the details of Plame's CIA employment from Cheney and other senior government officials.

One possibility examined by investigators is that Libby was attempting to cover for Cheney because of the political or legal fallout that might occur if it was determined that the vice president had been involved in the effort to discredit Wilson.

I made the same guess here.

Scooter Libby took notes during a June 12 conversation with Vice President Dick Cheney. In them, he writes that Cheney learned about Valerie Wilson working for the CIA from George Tenet. Shorter version: Libby lied to protect Cheney, who may or may not have needed him to lie, and now Libby is hoisted on his own petard.

One more thing: Wilson has maintained that the campaign to discredit him launched in March, 2003, after his CNN appearances discussing the forged Niger documents and Colin Powell's statement to the U.N. From Wilson's March 8, 2003 appearance:

WILSON: Well, this particular case is outrageous. I actually started my foreign service career in Niger and ended my foreign service career doing -- in charge of Africa in the Clinton White House. We know a lot about the uranium business in Niger, and for something like this to go unchallenged by U.S. -- the U.S. government is just simply stupid. It would have taken a couple of phone calls. We have had an embassy there since the early '60s. All this stuff is open. It's a restricted market of buyers and sellers. The Nigerians (sic) have always been very open with us.

For this to have gotten to the IAEA is on the face of it dumb, but more to the point, it taints the whole rest of the case that the government is trying to build against Iraq. I think it's safe to say that the U.S. government should have or did know that this report was a fake before Dr. ElBaradei mentioned it in his report at the U.N. yesterday.

As I wrote then:

Wilson was on CNN a lot in March. In most of his appearances, he charged that the war was not about disarming Iraq, but about Bush's quest to redraw the political map in the Middle East and about regime change.

So, is he right? That because he became a thorn in the Adminstration's side in March, someone ordered a dossier on him?

That "someone" most likely would be the White House Iraq Group, whose meetings were attended by Libby, Stephen Hadley and Karl Rove, among others.

If as has previously been reported, David Wurmser and John Hannah, and possibly Fred Fleitz on the State Department end have cooperated with Fitz, he probably has all the underlings in place. Maybe he's going for the top dog afterall.

UPI reported in June, 2003 that Cheney and others learned of doubts about the Niger report back in March, 2002.

A senior CIA official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the intelligence agency informed the White House on March 9, 2002 - 10 months before Bush's nationally televised speech - that an agency source who had traveled to Niger couldn't confirm European intelligence reports that Iraq was attempting to buy uranium from the West African country.

....The CIA's March 2002 warning about Iraq's alleged uranium-shopping expedition in Niger was sent to the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Justice Department and the FBI the same day it went to the White House, the senior CIA official said.

In the months before Bush's State of the Union speech, the senior CIA official said, agency officials also told the State Department, National Security Council staffers and members of Congress that they doubted that Iraq had been trying to buy uranium from Niger. One senior administration official, also speaking on the condition of anonymity because the intelligence reports remain classified, said the CIA's doubts were well known and widely shared throughout the government before Bush's speech.

More on Cheney and Wilson here and Libby and Wilson here. More on Cheney, Libby, Hadley and Wurmser here.

Update: Read Digby's take on Murray's article -- bringing Karl Rove into the mix. Reddhedd at Firedoglake analyzes the documents Libby filed on Jan. 31.