Reply #46: Great. Just what we didn't need

[cal04]

Rep. Porter Goss said Thursday that the uproar over allegations that White House officials purposely identified a covert CIA agent appears largely political and doesn't yet merit an investigation by the House Select Committee on Intelligence, which he chairs.

Goss, who was a CIA agent himself from the early 1960s to 1971, said he takes such leaks seriously, but he distinguished between a willful violation of federal law and an inadvertent disclosure.
Goss also said no one from the intelligence agencies has raised the issue with him since syndicated columnist Robert Novak identified the agent in a column July 14.

"I would say there's a much larger dose of partisan politics going on right now than there is worry about national security," said Goss, R-Sanibel. "But I would never take lightly a serious allegation backed up by evidence that there was a willful -- and I emphasize willful, inadvertent is something else -- willful disclosure, and I haven't seen any evidence." Goss said he would act if he did have evidence of that sort.Democrats want an independent counsel to investigate whether White House aides told Novak that the wife of a former diplomat, Joseph Wilson, was a covert CIA agent. Wilson has accused the White House of leaking his wife's name to discredit him after he refuted administration claims that Iraq sought uranium from the African nation of Niger, where Wilson was sent to investigate that possibility.

"I am not going to suggest there be any kind of independent counsel until it even rises to the level of coming to our committee's attention, which it hasn't risen to yet," Goss said.

Last modified: October 03. 2003 12:00AM
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