At the time, Cheney was angry that Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, was challenging a chief rationale for the invasion of Iraq. Wilson was telling reporters that he had been sent by the CIA to check out reports of Iraq trying to buy enriched uranium from Niger and had concluded that the claims were false.
But the White House still used the Niger allegations in making its terrifying case that Iraq's Saddam Hussein was on course to build a nuclear bomb.
After Wilson began to blow the whistle in the months after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Tenet divulged to Cheney that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA and had a hand in arranging Wilson's fact-finding trip to Niger - information that Cheney then passed on to Libby in a conversation on June 12, 2003, according to Libby's notes as described by lawyers in the case, the New York Times reported. [NYT, Oct. 25, 2005]
On July 14, 2003, Robert Novak's column, citing two administration sources, outed Plame and portrayed Wilson's Niger trip as a case of nepotism. (Robert Novak and Viveca Novak are not related.)
Furious that Plame's covert identity had been blown, CIA officers pressed Tenet to refer the case to the Justice Department to determine whether the disclosure violated a law barring the willful exposure of a CIA officer. An investigation was soon launched.
Responding to the initial inquiries, Libby and Rove reportedly suggested they may have heard about Plame's CIA job from reporters and just recycled the rumors. But Fitzgerald's investigation discovered that the White House officials had clued reporters in on Plame's identity, not vice versa.
Fitzgerald has so far obtained a five-count indictment against Libby. Now, Viveca Novak's testimony could help determine whether the prosecutor is convinced that the case against Rove is ripe for grand jury charges, too.
Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com, as is his 1999 book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.'
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