Doubts remain as probe of CIA leak case expands

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Saturday, October 04, 2003

Doubts remain as probe of CIA leak case expands

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The US Justice Department has decided to expand its criminal investigation into the leak of a CIA agent's identity, but analysts here are beginning to doubt the probe will yield any substantial results at all.

Federal law enforcement officials said Thursday the investigation would move beyond the White House to include the State Department, the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) which have access to the officers' classified identify.

"Do not destroy" letters have been sent by the Justice Department to the Defense and State departments requesting preservation of phone logs, e-mails and other documents that could become evidence in the inquiry, they said.

The name of Valerie Plame, a CIA undercover officer, first appeared in a July 14 newspaper column by Robert Novak, who said two senior administration officials told him Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, was sent at her recommendation to check out reports that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger to make nuclear weapons.

Wilson, a former acting US ambassador to Iraq before the Gulf war in 1991, reported that officials in Niger said no such purchase took place and has accused the Bush administration of misusing intelligence to justify war with Iraq.

The Justice Department notified the White House following a decision late Monday to conduct a full investigation into the case,in which the CIA complained White House officials leaked Plame' name in an apparent effort to punish her husband and stifle criticism of the US case for war in Iraq.

Democratic lawmakers have demanded a special counsel to run the investigation, because Attorney General John Ashcroft as a Bush appointee, they said, is unable to oversee an impartial probe of the Bush administration and has political ties with White House officials.

Republicans in Congress, on the other hand, argued that the Justice Department can conduct a fair inquiry under Ashcroft, and were warned against breaking ranks and joining the calls for a special counsel. The White House accused the Democrats of "political opportunism" over the issue. "There are some that are seeking partisan political advantage," spokesman Scott McClellan said.

Events like this, an article in Friday's edition of The New York Times said, often follow a predictable pattern: first a leak,then an investigation and at the end, the source not found. Sooneror later, the storm usually blows over.

But this time it is a bit different and it would not ebb away easily, analysts said. As time went by, the issue has developed into one of partisan politics, with the Democrats keen to take advantage of it to attack the Bush administration and the White House trying hard to minimize its aftermath.

It is difficult to predict at this stage what would come out ofthe investigation, the analysts said, taking into account the presidential elections just 13 months away and the Iraq war for which the president has claimed credit but whose justification hasbeen accused of relying on false intelligence.

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