Date:   9/30/2003 12:17:52 AM ( 21 y ago)
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White House Rejects Independent Counsel for Leak
Mon September 29, 2003 06:50 PM ET

By Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Monday rejected Democratic demands that an independent counsel be appointed to find out who leaked secret information apparently aimed at discrediting a vocal critic of prewar intelligence on Iraq.

The sudden squall over the leak that blew the cover of an undercover CIA operative energized Democratic presidential candidates and deepened tension over the administration's failure to find promised weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Officials said the Justice Department began a preliminary inquiry to determine if there should be a full-blown probe based on a memo from the CIA stating a leak had occurred.

An official said one thrust of the inquiry would be to determine whether the leak violated the law or national security, or caused any damage.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan, during a lively news briefing, said no internal investigation was planned.

"At this point, I think the Department of Justice would be the appropriate one to look into a matter like this ... There are a lot of career professionals at the Department of Justice that address matters like this."

The controversy centers on the disclosure that Valerie Plame -- the wife of Joseph Wilson, a former U.S. ambassador to Gabon -- was an undercover CIA operative specializing in weapons of mass destruction. Wilson believes his wife's cover was blown by administration officials looking to discredit him or get revenge.

"I don't think people appreciate very much ... the unnecessary dragging of my wife's name into this sphere," Wilson told CNN.

Retired Gen. Wesley Clark, a Democratic presidential hopeful, said an independent commission was needed.

"This administration has played politics with national security for a long time, but this is going too far," Clark told Reuters.

Another Democratic candidate, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, called for a thorough investigation free from political pressure. He suggested it be carried out by the independent Justice Department inspector general.

"KEEP PHONE LOGS"

Candidate Joseph Lieberman, a senator from Connecticut, urged the White House to maintain all phone logs, e-mails, correspondence "and anything else that may relate to these events, and make clear that anyone destroying or otherwise tampering with these records will be fired."

A leak of classified information is a federal crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Connecting the leak to the White House would be an embarrassment for President Bush, whose claims that Iraq held weapons of mass destruction have never been proved.

Wilson said Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, condoned the leak. But McClellan said Rove had assured him it was "simply not true" that he had anything to do with it.

McClellan pledged the White House's cooperation with the Department of Justice and suggested anyone involved in the leak would be fired.

Wilson has accused the Bush administration of exaggerating the weapons of mass destruction threat posed by Saddam Hussein as it made its case for an invasion of Iraq.

He wrote in The New York Times in July that he went to Niger early in 2002 at the CIA's request to assess a report that Iraq sought to buy uranium from Niger. The International Atomic Energy Agency later dismissed the allegation as based on forged documents.

The Niger uranium charge found its way into Bush's State of the Union speech in January this year as part of the U.S. case against Saddam, and only after Wilson went public did the White House admit Bush should not have included it, blaming the CIA.

The fact that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA was published by a columnist, Robert Novak, shortly after Wilson's article appeared in The New York Times. He refused to divulge his source. (Additional reporting by Deborah Charles, Jim Vicini and Tabassum Zakaria)
 

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