US Justice Department probes leak of CIA agent identity

9.30am

WASHINGTON - The US Justice Department said on Tuesday it had opened a criminal investigation into the illegal leak of a CIA official's identity in a case that could revive charges that the White House overstated pre-war intelligence on Iraqi weapons.

President George W Bush said he knew of no one in his administration who leaked classified information. He added: "If a person has violated (the) law, the person will be taken care of."

In his first comment on the fast-spreading scandal, Bush said, "If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it and will take the appropriate action.

"I have told our administration, people in my administration, to be fully co-operative," Bush said after a meeting with business executives in Chicago.

The controversy centres on the disclosure in July that the wife of a former US envoy in Iraq and Gabon, Joseph Wilson, was an undercover CIA operative specialising in weapons of mass destruction.

Wilson has charged that administration officials made public his wife's name, Valerie Plame, -- blowing her cover and damaging her career -- in an act of retribution after he accused the White House of exaggerating the weapons threat from Iraq, Washington's main justification for going to war.

Disclosing the identity of a clandestine US intelligence officer is a federal crime as is leaking classified information to the media.

Justice Department lawyers notified the White House counsel's office on Monday night that they had begun a probe into "possible unauthorised disclosures concerning the identity of an undercover CIA employee," according to a memo sent to White House staff by counsel Alberto Gonzales.

Attorney General John Ashcroft said the Justice Department had requested the White House preserve all documents that might be relevant and made a similar request of the CIA.

Wilson 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 that country. He found the allegation highly doubtful and the International Atomic Energy Agency later dismissed it as based on forged documents.

Nevertheless, the charge found its way into Bush's State of the Union speech in January as part of the US case against Saddam. Only after Wilson went public did the White House admit Bush should not have included it, blaming the CIA.

Democrats demanded an independent counsel investigate the leak and keep it out of the hands of Ashcroft, a Bush political appointee. They drafted a non-binding Senate resolution in support of an independent probe, but Republicans who control the chamber, prevented them from bringing it up for an immediate vote.

Sen Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, said the resolution would send "a message to the president that we need a thorough, complete and fearless investigation, and that only a special counsel can do that for us."

Bush and Ashcroft voiced confidence in the Justice Department investigation.

"The prosecutors and agents who are and will be handling this investigation are career professionals with extensive experience in handling matters involving sensitive national security information," said Ashcroft.

Justice Department spokesman Mark Corallo told reporters a special prosecutor may still be appointed later, saying, "We are not closing any doors."

Gonzales sent a memo by e-mail directing White House staff to preserve any relevant materials. A syndicated columnist, Robert Novak, in a July column, cited two unidentified administration sources as having told him Plame's identity.

The Justice Department planned to send a letter to the White House outlining more specific instructions on the materials needed, such as phone logs and e-mails.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the counsel's office informed White House senior staff of the investigation on Tuesday morning.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq