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Security adviser named as source in CIA scandal
By
Michael Smith and Sarah Baxter
11/20/05 "The
Times" -- -- THE mysterious source who gave America’s
foremost journalist, Bob Woodward, a tip-off about the CIA agent at
the centre of one of Washington’s biggest political storms was
Stephen Hadley, the White House national security adviser, according
to lawyers close to the investigation.
Woodward, the Washington Post reporter who broke the Watergate
scandal that forced President Richard Nixon out of office, has
refused publicly to divulge the name of his informant without
permission, which has thus far been withheld.
The naming of CIA agent Valerie Plame as the wife of Joseph Wilson,
the former US ambassador sent to Niger to investigate disputed
claims that Saddam Hussein was trying to purchase uranium yellowcake
for the manufacture of nuclear weapons, led to the indictment last
month of Vice-President Dick Cheney’s top aide, Lewis “Scooter”
Libby, for lying to a grand jury.
It is an offence in America to reveal the identity of a covert
agent, although doubts remain about Plame’s precise status.
A spokeswoman for the National Security Council (NSC) denied that
Hadley was the journalist’s source. However, in South Korea on
Friday during an official visit with President George W Bush, Hadley
dodged the question.
“I’ve also seen press reports from White House officials saying that
I am not one of his sources,” Hadley said with a smile. Asked if
this was a yes or no he replied: “It is what it is.”
A White House official said the national security adviser’s
ambiguity was unintentional and repeated that Hadley was not
Woodward’s source. But others close to the investigation insisted
that he was.
If so, according to Woodward’s timeline, he will have disclosed the
information in mid-June 2003, roughly a week before Libby talked to
other reporters on June 23. Supporters of Cheney’s disgraced aide
are jubilant that this casts doubt on special prosecutor Patrick
Fitzgerald’s contention that Libby was the first to spread the word
about Plame.
When Woodward realised this, he went back to his informant. “My
source said he or she had no alternative but to go to the
prosecutor. I said, ‘If you do, am I released?’ The source said yes,
but only for the purpose of discussing it with Fitzgerald.” Woodward
testified under oath to the special prosecutor last Monday.
Woodward said the unnamed official told him about Plame in “an
offhand, casual manner . . . almost gossip” and “I didn’t attach any
importance to it”. He never wrote up the story.
With more journalists in the loop than previously identified, it
will be harder for Fitzgerald to prove Libby was deliberately lying
when he said he first learnt of Plame from a journalist rather than
the CIA.
Two years ago, when Plame’s identity was first revealed, Hadley was
Condoleezza Rice’s deputy at the NSC. He is also thought to have
been a key source for two books by Woodward on the aftermath of the
9/11 attacks.
Other potential suspects have been denying they are Woodward’s
source. Cheney has come under suspicion, although sources close to
the investigation claim he is not in the frame.
Fitzgerald may want to interview Woodward’s informant and declared
in court filings on Friday that proceedings would continue under a
new grand jury. Supporters of Karl Rove, the top White House adviser
known as “Bush’s brain”, also fear Fitzgerald may still be
investigating him.
Woodward declined to confirm or deny that Hadley had leaked him the
information.
It is familiar territory for the Washington Post journalist, who
kept the name of Deep Throat, his Watergate informant, secret for
more than three decades until Mark Felt, the former deputy director
of the FBI, outed himself this year.
Yet colleagues at the Washington Post have been criticising him on
their internal message board. One accused Woodward of being the
“800-pound elephant in the room”, adding: “I admire the hell out of
Bob, but this looks awful.”
Copyright 2005 Times Newspapers Ltd.
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