Novak Defends Naming CIA Officer

Columnist Robert Novak broke his silence Monday about his disclosure of an undercover CIA operative's identity, defending himself against a former agency official's account that he twice warned Novak not to publish the name.

In his syndicated column, Novak did not dispute that former CIA spokesman Bill Harlow told him he should not print the covert officer's name, Valerie Plame, during conversations they had prior to Novak's July 14, 2003 column.

But Novak reasserted that no CIA official ever told him in advance "that Valerie Plame Wilson's disclosure would endanger her or anybody else."

Plame is the wife of former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who was sent to Africa by the CIA in 2002 to evaluate intelligence that Iraq was trying to acquire nuclear materials.

More than a year later, with the U.S. government unable to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Wilson wrote an op-ed piece for The New York Times, "What I Didn't Find In Africa," and asked the question: "Did the Bush administration manipulate intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons programs to justify an invasion?"

Eight days later, Novak wrote an article in which he disclosed Plame's name and cited as sources two unidentified senior Bush administration officials. Novak wrote that the officials had told him Plame had suggested sending her husband to Niger.

Wilson claims the leak was retribution for his article and criticism of the administration. Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is investigating whether government officials broke the law by disclosing Plame's name to Novak and other journalists.