Ex-Aide: Bush Misled Public On CIA Leak

Former Press Secretary Scott McClellan Says Top White House Officials Provided False Information

(CBS/AP)  Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan blames President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for efforts to mislead the public about the role of White House aides in leaking the identity of a CIA operative.

In an excerpt from his forthcoming book, McClellan recounts the 2003 news conference in which he told reporters that aides Karl Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby were "not involved" in the leak involving operative Valerie Plame.

"There was one problem. It was not true," McClellan writes, according to a brief excerpt released Tuesday. "I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest-ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president's chief of staff and the president himself."

Mr. Bush's chief of staff at the time was Andrew Card.

Plame told CBS News Evening News anchor Katie Couric she believes her identity was leaked in a newspaper because her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who had gone on a fact-finding mission for the CIA before the Iraq war, publicly accused the president and others of lying to justify the invasion.

"We understood that he would be criticized deeply," Plame told Couric. "I never once considered that in fact this administration would betray my identity as payback for his criticism."

The book excerpt, posted on the Web site of publisher PublicAffairs, renews questions about what went on in the West Wing and how much Mr. Bush and Cheney knew about the leak. For years, it was McClellan's job to field - and often duck - those types of questions.

Now that he's spurring them, answers are equally hard to come by.

White House press secretary Dana Perino said it wasn't clear what McClellan meant in the excerpt and she had no immediate comment. McClellan turned down interview requests Tuesday.

McClellan's book, "What Happened," isn't due out until April, and the excerpt released Monday was merely a teaser. It doesn't get into detail about how Mr. Bush and Cheney were involved or reveal what happened behind the scenes.

In the fall of 2003, after authorities began investigating the leak, McClellan told reporters that he'd personally spoken to Rove, who was Mr. Bush's top political adviser, and Libby, who was Cheney's chief of staff.

"They're good individuals, they're important members of our White House team, and that's why I spoke with them, so that I could come back to you and say that they were not involved," McClellan said at the time.

Both men, however, were involved. Rove was one of the original sources for the newspaper column that identified Plame. Libby also spoke to reporters about the CIA officer and was convicted of lying about those discussions. He is the only person to be charged in the case.

Since that news conference, however, the official White House stance has shifted and it has been difficult to get a clear picture of what happened behind closed doors around the time of the leak.

McClellan's flat denials gave way to a steady drumbeat of "no comment." And Mr. Bush's original pledge to fire anyone involved in the leak became a promise to fire anyone who "committed a crime."

In a CNN interview earlier this year, McClellan made no suggestion that Mr. Bush knew either Libby or Rove was involved in the leak. McClellan said his statements to reporters were what he and the president "believed to be true at the time based on assurances that we were both given."

Mr. Bush most recently addressed the issue in July after commuting Libby's 30-month prison term. He acknowledged that some in the White House were involved in the leak. Then, after repeatedly declining to discuss the ongoing investigation, he said the case was closed and it was time to move on.