Armitage says he was key source on Plame

WASHINGTON – Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage acknowledged Thursday that he was a columnist’s primary source in the disclosure that retired U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA. The disclosure touched off a wide-ranging special counsel’s investigation and led to the indictment of Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff.

Armitage said in an interview that the disclosure was inadvertent and that he had cooperated fully with Justice Department special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald in the months since.

Fitzgerald, he said, had requested that he not talk about his role in the case, a restriction that was lifted only Tuesday.

“I called the special counsel on Tuesday of this week to ask if I could end this nightmare. He said yes,” Armitage said.

Wilson traveled to the African country of Niger in February 2002 to check out claims that Iraq was seeking uranium ore there to restart its nuclear-weapons program. Wilson found the claims baseless, and after the Iraq invasion he went public with criticism that the White House had manipulated intelligence on Iraq.

The revelation that his wife, who used the name Valerie Plame, was a CIA officer in July 2003 by columnist Robert Novak prompted a series of events that led to Fitzgerald’s probe and allegations that top aides to President Bush had leaked her name in an attempt to intimidate Wilson and other critics.

The administration’s defenders have claimed that Armitage’s acknowledgement of his role, which has been speculated about for months, takes much of the sting out of those allegations.

But interviews and documents also portray the White House – in the persons of Bush aide Karl Rove, Cheney chief of staff I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby and others – as furiously trying to get information about Wilson and Plame, then discussing it with reporters.

Fitzgerald, whose probe hasn’t concluded, indicted Libby last October on charges of obstruction of justice, perjury and making false statements. Libby is contesting the charges.

In the interview with McClatchy Newspapers, CBS News and the New York Times, Armitage said he had no partisan intent in mentioning that Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA at the end of an interview with Novak on other subjects in the summer of 2003. He didn’t know her by the name Valerie Plame or that she was working undercover.