[NYTr] Armitage Says He Was "Foolish" in Leaking Spook Plame's Identity

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

AP via SF Chronicle - Nov 11, 2007
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/11/11/national/w121422S36.DTL

Armitage Says He Was Foolish in CIA Leak

By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer

(11-11) 12:14 PST WASHINGTON, (AP)--Former Deputy Secretary of State
Richard Armitage said Sunday he was foolish to have revealed Valerie
Plame's CIA identity.

Armitage's acknowledgment came in response to comments by Plame, who
said the former Bush administration official had no right to talk to a
reporter about where she worked.

A year ago, Armitage publicly apologized to Plame and her husband. The
former No. 2 State Department official remains the only principal in
the leak to have done so.

At least three one-time administration officials in addition to
Armitage discussed Plame's CIA status with reporters. They are former
White House political adviser Karl Rove, Vice President Dick Cheney's
ex-chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby and former presidential
press secretary Ari Fleischer.

Armitage and Rove were the sources for a 2003 newspaper column by
commentator Robert Novak that disclosed Plame's CIA employment.

Novak's column came out eight days after Plame's husband, Joseph
Wilson, said the administration had twisted prewar intelligence to
exaggerate the Iraqi threat.

Libby was convicted this year of perjury, obstruction of justice and
lying to the FBI about his conversations with reporters regarding Plame.

After receiving immunity from prosecution, Fleischer admitted to a
federal grand jury that he had told reporters about Plame.

Bush, who was questioned in the criminal investigation, commuted
Libby's 30-month prison sentence and never took any individual to task
publicly for the leak.

In July, the president said the criminal investigation had run its
course and that "now we're going to move on."

Armitage has taken a different tack.

"I think it was extraordinarily foolish of me" to have disclosed
Plame's identity, Armitage said Sunday. He was agreeing with comments
by Plame that he should have known better.

Armitage said there was no ill-intent on his part. He said he spoke to
Novak after seeing a reference to Wilson's wife in a memo, which did
not name her.

Plame sued Cheney, Rove, Libby and Armitage for alleging violating her
rights, but a federal judge dismissed the case, saying there was no
legal basis for it.

Despite the dismissal, the judge said the lawsuit raised important
questions relating to the propriety of actions undertaken by the
nation's highest government officials.