US News
Washington Post reporter also knew of Plame's identity
By DPA
Nov 16, 2005, 19:00 GMT

Washington - Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward, famous for his reporting on the Watergate scandal, testified under oath that a senior Bush administration official told him Valerie Plame was a CIA agent a month before her identity was publicly revealed, the newspaper said Wednesday.

Woodward provided the information during a deposition with special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who is investigating the leak of Plame's name to the press. It is illegal in the United States to knowingly reveal the name of secret CIA operatives.

Woodward worked out a deal with his source to discuss the conversation as long as he did not publicly identify the official, the newspaper said.

Plame is the wife of Joe Wilson, the former U.S. ambassador dispatched by the Bush administration in the run-up to the Iraq war to investigate what turned out to be bogus evidence that Saddam Hussein tried to obtain nuclear material from Niger.

After the invasion of Iraq, Wilson wrote an op-ed police scorning the administration for misleading the public into to supporting the war. Days later, his wife was outed in an article by conservative columnist Robert Novak.

Fitzgerald's investigation has so far led to the indictment of I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, who stepped down last month as Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff. President George W. Bush's most influential political advisor, Karl Rove, also remains under investigation.

Libby's attorney said Woodward's testimony undermines Fitzgerald's case against his client because it alters the chronology of events spelled out in the prosecutor's indictment of Libby.