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U.S. Probes Leak of CIA Agent's Identity

Posted on: Sunday, 28 September 2003, 06:00 CDT

The Justice Department is investigating allegations that White House officials revealed the identity of a CIA agent, a senior Bush administration official said Sunday.

The disclosure of the agent's identity by a syndicated columnist came shortly after her husband had undermined President Bush's claim that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from Africa.

The president's national security adviser said she was unaware of any White House involvement in the matter.

"I know nothing of any such White House effort to reveal any of this, and it certainly would not be the way that the president would expect his White House to operate," Condoleezza Rice told "Fox News Sunday."

Secretary of State Colin Powell said he knew nothing about the matter.

The administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed that the Justice Department has received a letter from CIA Director George Tenet to look into the matter.

The department and the FBI now are trying to determine whether there was a violation of the law and, if so, then whether a full-blown criminal investigation is warranted, the official said.

The flap began in January when Bush said in his State of the Union address that British intelligence officials had learned that Iraq had attempted to purchase yellowcake uranium in Africa.

In an opinion piece published in July by The New York Times, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson said he told the CIA long before the president's address that the British reports were suspect.

A week after Wilson went public with his criticism, syndicated columnist Robert Novak, quoting anonymous government sources, said Wilson's wife was a CIA operative working on the issue of weapons of mass destruction.

The administration has since said the assertion should not have been in the speech.

A senior administration official cited in a Washington Post report Sunday said that two top White House officials called at least a half-dozen journalists and revealed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife. Disclosing the name of an undercover CIA agent could violate federal law.

"I know nothing about any such calls and I do know that the president of the United States would not expect his White House to behave in that way," Rice told NBC's "Meet the Press."

Powell told ABC's "This Week" that he thought that if the CIA believed the identity of one of its agents have been revealed, it had an obligation to ask the Justice Department to look into the matter. But he added: "Other than that, I don't know anything about the matter."

Rice said the matter has been referred to the Justice Department and "I think that's the appropriate place. ... Let's just see what the Justice Department does."

When pressed as to whether anyone at the White House raised concern that the Wilson matter posed a problem for the administration, Rice replied, "I don't remember any such conversation."

She pledged White House cooperation in the Justice Department inquiry.

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