Bush's national security advisor questioned in CIA leak case

Condoleezza Rice, the national security advisor to President George W. Bush, was questioned by investigators in their probe to find out who in the administrationleaked the identity of a secret agent of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), media reports said Friday.

Rice was questioned by the US attorney's office at an early stage in the investigation, said the reports quoting a senior administration official traveling with Bush Friday to a European Union summit in Ireland.

Rice was placed under oath in the questioning, perhaps a month ago, the reports said. No details of the questioning were available.

Bush was questioned by the investigators for more than an hour on Thursday.

Several journalists and administration officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and McClellan, have also been questioned in the investigation.

Investigators want to find out who in the administration leakedto the media last year the name of former ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, an undercover CIA operative. In the UnitedStates, it is a crime to reveal a CIA agent's identity.

Wilson was sent by the CIA to Niger in 2002 to investigate allegations that Iraq had tried to purchase uranium ore from the country, and reported back that he found no basis for the allegations.

In his State of the Union address in January 2003, however, Bush repeated the Iraq-Niger allegations to bolster his argument that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction. Wilson denounced the Bush administration's claim and has said he believeshis wife's identity was disclosed to undermine his credibility.

Source: Xinhua