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Woodward claim on CIA leak disputes charge
(AP)
Updated: 2005-11-17 08:45
Bob Woodward's version of when and where he learned the identity of a CIA
operative contradicts a special prosecutor's contention that US Vice President
Dick Cheney's top aide was the first to make the disclosure to reporters.
Attorneys for the aide, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, described Wednesday's
statement by the Washington Post's assistant managing editor as helpful for
their defense, although Libby is charged with lying to a grand jury and the FBI,
not with disclosing the CIA official's name.
"Hopefully, as information is obtained from reporters like Bob Woodward, the
real facts will come out," lawyer Ted Wells said Wednesday.
Woodward, a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, said he had not told his bosses
until last month that he had learned about Valerie Plame's identity and her work
at the CIA more than two years ago from a high-level Bush administration
official.
When Woodward learned Plame's name, he told The Associated Press Wednesday,
he was in the middle of finishing a book about the administration's decision to
go to war in Iraq, and didn't want to be subpoenaed to testify.
Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward speaks
at the US National Press Club, June 17, 2002.
[Reuters/file] | "The grand jury was going and
reporters were being jailed, and I hunkered down more than I usually do,"
Woodward said, explaining why he waited so long to tell Post Executive Editor
Leonard Downie Jr. what he knew about the Plame matter.
Woodward made his name with his coverage of the Watergate scandal during the
Nixon administration. He kept secret for decades the identity of "Deep Throat,"
a key source in that reporting.
Woodward said he had apologized for not giving Downie much earlier notice of
his reporting on Plame.
To critics who are taking shots at him, Woodward said, "Journalism is a
contact sport. I was 29 when people who really knew how to shoot were around,"
referring to Watergate.
Because his source in the leak case has refused to be identified publicly,
Woodward said his hands are tied. "We can't tell the whole story. I would like
to. It's one that will be told some day," he said.
Columnist Robert Novak disclosed Plame's identity and her work at the CIA on
July 14, 2003, eight days after her husband, Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador,
had accused the White House of misrepresenting intelligence to justify the Iraq
war.
Libby, Cheney's former chief of staff, was indicted last
month on charges that he lied to FBI agents and a grand jury about when he
learned Plame's identity and how he subsequently disclosed it to reporters.
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