Cheney adviser named in CIA flap

• Article
• Comments ()
• Click-2-Listen
• Videos

By

Time magazine correspondent Matt Cooper yesterday named a second Bush administration official as a source for stories that identified Valerie Plame as an agent of the CIA, although he conceded that neither source mentioned her by name or said she had been a "cover agent."

In a first-person article in this week's editions of the magazine, Mr. Cooper writes that he told a federal grand jury investigating the leak that he asked Lewis "Scooter" Libby, chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, whether the vice president played any role in arranging Joseph C. Wilson IV's trip to Niger, as Mr. Wilson, a former U.S. ambassador to Gabon and then to Sao Tome and Principe, had suggested in an op-ed essay in the New York Times.

"On background, I asked Libby if he had heard anything about Wilson's wife sending her husband to Niger. Libby replied, 'Yeah, I've heard that too,' or words to that effect," Mr. Cooper writes. The magazine is available on newsstands today.

Mr. Cooper confirmed that neither Mr. Libby nor senior Bush adviser Karl Rove identified Mrs. Plame or disclosed her work status at the CIA. ("Background" describes an interview in which the subject cannot be quoted, by name, position, or even indirectly; any information must be used only as "background information.")

"Like Rove, Libby never used Valerie Plame's name or indicated that her status was covert, and he never told me that he had heard about Plame from other reporters, as some press accounts have indicated," Mr. Cooper writes.

In an appearance yesterday on NBC's "Meet the Press," Mr. Cooper was asked by host Tim Russert whether he interpreted Mr. Libby's response "as a confirmation."

"I did, yes," the Time reporter said.

Mr. Cooper said Mr. Rove was warning him that Mr. Wilson's accusations against the Bush administration were entitled to little credibility. Such cautions, or "wave-offs," are common.

In an e-mail sent by Mr. Rove, and subsequently turned over to the grand jury by the White House, he notified Stephen J. Hadley, who was then the deputy national security adviser to the president, that "Matt Cooper called to give me a heads-up that he's got a welfare reform story coming.

"When he finished his brief heads-up, he immediately launched into Niger. 'Isn't this damaging? Hasn't the president been hurt?' I didn't take the bait, but I said if I were him I wouldn't get Time far out in front on this."