CIA Leak Path: Cheney, Libby, Woodward
By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Report
Monday 06 March 2006
In mid-June 2003, when former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's criticism against the White House's use of pre-war Iraq intelligence started to make national headlines, Vice President Dick Cheney told his former chief of staff and close confidant I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby to leak classified intelligence data on Iraq's nuclear ambitions to a legendary Washington journalist in order to undercut the charges made against the Bush administration by the former ambassador.
On June 27, 2003, Bob Woodward, the Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, became the first journalist to whom Libby leaked a portion of the classified National Intelligence Estimate that purportedly showed how Iraq tried to acquire yellowcake uranium from Niger.
More below -
This story is based on interviews with current and former administration officials who work or worked at the CIA, the State Department and the National Security Council. All of the individuals are familiar with the events that took place in the days that led up to Libby's meeting with Woodward and other journalists in which the NIE was discussed.
The rest can be seen at:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/030606Z.shtml
Interesting that Leopold is giving Woodward a platform to reply.
"In the interest of fairness, any individual named in this story who believes he has been portrayed unfairly will have the opportunity to use this space to respond."