Cheney adviser resigns after indictment (AP) Updated: 2005-10-29 11:40
Hoping to contain the damage, some Republicans distanced themselves from
Libby. Others said the legal system should run its course.
"It's time to stop the leaks and spin and turn Washington into one big
recovery meeting where people say what they mean and mean what they say," said
Rep. Jim Ramstad (news, bio, voting record), R-Minn.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said through a spokesman that the
Senate won't investigate the CIA leak.
Bush ordered U.S. troops to war in March 2003, saying Saddam's weapons of
mass destruction program posed a grave and immediate threat to the United
States. When no such weapons were found, the administration came under increased
criticism for using faulty intelligence to make its case for war.
It was during the height of that debate that Plame's identity as a covert CIA
officer was leaked in July 2003.
Her name was published just a little over a week after her husband, a former
ambassador, wrote a newspaper opinion piece suggesting the administration had
twisted prewar intelligence, and describing how he had gone to Africa in 2002 to
check on claims Saddam had tried to buy nuclear materials.
Wilson couldn't validate the uranium claim but Bush later used it anyway.
Wilson alleged that the leak of his wife's name was retaliation for his
criticism, and he said Friday, "When an indictment is delivered to the front
door of the White House, the office of the president is defiled."
The indictment alleges Libby began digging for details about Wilson well
before the former ambassador went public July 6, 2003.
Libby made his first inquiries about Wilson's travel to Niger in late May
2003, and by June 11, Libby was told by a CIA official that Wilson's wife worked
for the agency and might have sent him on the trip. Libby also heard it from
Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman, the indictment said.
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