Cheney's Number One is Source for Leak


From "Cheney's aide revealed as source of CIA leak · Reporter released after naming Lewis Libby · Officials may face charge of obstructing justice" by Julian Borger Saturday October 1, 2005 The Guardian

[excerpts; emphasis added]

An investigation into a White House intelligence leak was nearing its conclusion yesterday after a New York Times reporter, jailed in July for refusing to testify, identified Vice-President Dick Cheney's leading aide as her main source.

Miller did not name that source in public, but lawyers in the case named Lewis Libby, the vice-president's chief of staff, as the government official she had spoken to in July 2003, about a CIA undercover agent, Valerie Plame.

Ms Plame is the wife of an administration critic, Joseph Wilson, who accused the White House of blowing her cover in retribution for his claims that the US had fabricated allegations of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Mr Wilson, a former ambassador, had said he had been sent to Africa by the CIA to look for evidence of Iraqi uranium purchases and had found none, contrary to claims by the president.

The scandal threatens the White House directly. Another journalist, Time magazine's Matt Cooper, has named Karl Rove, the president's chief political adviser, as his source for revealing Ms Plame's identity. Rove and Libby, two of the most powerful behind-the-scenes figures in the administration, have said they revealed that Mr Wilson's wife worked in the CIA and had been instrumental in sending him on the fact-finding mission. But lawyers for both officials insist they did not break the law, as they did not provide her name, and did not know she was undercover.

US media reports quoted lawyers involved in the case yesterday as saying a decision on whether to press charges could come as early as next week, in the wake of Miller's testimony.

Facing a barrage of questions yesterday, she protested: "I testified as soon I could." Miller's reputation had already been battered by stories she had written in the run-up to the Iraq invasion about Saddam Hussein's supposed weapons of mass destruction. Those reports, based largely on unnamed administration and Iraqi exile sources, were later proved to be wrong, and led to intense criticism that she had been too unquestioning of, her contacts.

The case is coming to a climax at a time when the Bush administration is mired in scandal. Last month, one of the White House's leading budget officials, David Safavian, was arrested on perjury charges. A top Republican ally in Congress, Tom DeLay, was charged on Wednesday with violating election laws, and a Pentagon analyst, Lawrence Franklin, was yesterday reported to have agreed to plead guilty in a case involving the transfer of military secrets to pro-Israel lobbyists.