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(Photo: CBS/AP)
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The CIA's Office of General Counsel reported the leak regarding operative Valerie Plame to the Justice Department in late July 2003. The letter noted a violation of the law had apparently occurred when someone provided syndicated columnist Robert Novak with the CIA officer's name. The letter was not signed by then-CIA Director George Tenet and did not call for a specific investigation of the White House.
Previously, the CIA sought to distance itself from President Bush's assertion in his State of the Union address that Saddam Hussein was shopping for uranium in Africa. Tenet later said that his agency had concerns about the claim, but after some language was changed, they cleared the president's text as "factually correct." Soon after, the documents that had apparently launched Joseph Wilson's investigation into the alleged Iraq-Africa connection were given to the CIA, and quickly deemed forgeries. Administration officials later acknowledged the error.
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