US: The US Justice Department is investigating claims that two White House officials, possibly including President George Bush's key political adviser Mr Karl Rove, broke federal law by leaking to the media the name of an undercover CIA officer, writes Conor O'Clery North America Editor
The revelation of infighting in the Bush administration coincides with the leaking of a letter from a Republican-controlled Congressional committee criticising US intelligence agencies for using what it called outdated, circumstantial and fragmentary information to conclude that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and ties to al-Qaeda.
The investigation into the White House leak was initiated by the CIA after top Bush officials anonymously revealed the identity of the CIA agent in retaliation for her husband's criticism of the White House over Iraq.
Ms Valerie Plame's husband, former US ambassador Mr Joseph Wilson, was sent by Vice President Dick Cheney's office to Niger in 2002 to investigate a British intelligence report that Saddam Hussein was trying to buy weapons-grade uranium.
Mr Wilson reported back that the claim was unfounded, but Mr Bush later used the discredited information in his State of the Union address in January.
After Mr Wilson publicly challenged President Bush's claim, "two senior administration officials" leaked the information to conservative columnist Robert Novak that Ms Plame was a CIA agent.
Intentionally disclosing a CIA agent's identity is a crime under an 1982 federal law, as it could potentially endanger the life of the agent and the CIA official's contacts. The maximum penalty is 10 years in prison and $50,000 in fines.
Mr Novak was not the only reporter contacted. At least six Washington journalists were called by two White House officials who disclosed the identity and occupation of Mr Wilson's wife before Mr Novak "outed" her in a column in July, the Washington Post stated yesterday, quoting a senior administration official.
"Clearly, it was meant purely and simply for revenge," the senior official said, referring to the embarrassment caused to Mr Bush, who was forced to publicly back away from his uranium claim after Mr Wilson's disclosure.
The leak was intended to undermine Mr Wilson's credibility as officials alleged that the former ambassador was selected for the Niger mission partly because his wife had recommended him.
In a rare public airing of bitter differences in the Bush administration, the senior official told the Post that the leaks were "wrong and a huge miscalculation, because they were irrelevant and did nothing to diminish Wilson's credibility".
CIA Director Mr George Tenet reportedly initiated the investigation in a memo to the Justice Department raising questions about whether the leaker had broken federal law by disclosing the identity of an undercover officer.
The inquiry is acutely embarrassing for Mr Bush's National Security Adviser, Ms Condoleezza Rice, as it raises questions over her credibility in allowing the Niger reference to remain in the State of the Union address. It has since been disclosed that she received a memo from Mr Tenet about Mr Wilson's conclusions before the speech.
Yesterday Ms Rice said on NBC's Meet the Press that she simply "didn't remember" the memo and admitted "it was a mistake" to include the Niger claim.
The CIA request for an investigation also revives the row between the White House and the intelligence agencies over the way Mr Bush blamed Mr Tenet for the inclusion of the uranium allegation in the January speech. The CIA director took responsibility for approving the State of the Union address but revealed the earlier CIA warning not to use the Niger claim.
Meanwhile, Republican and Democratic leaders of the House intelligence committee have criticised the CIA and other intelligence agencies for using information with "too many uncertainties" to conclude that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and ties to al-Qaeda, the Washington Post reported yesterday.
It said that they relied on "past assessments" dating to before 1998 and on "some new 'piecemeal' intelligence", both of which "were not challenged as a routine matter".
"The absence of proof that chemical and biological weapons and their related development programs had been destroyed was considered proof that they continued to exist," the two committee members said in a letter on Thursday to Mr Tenet which the Washington Post obtained.