DATE=9/30/03

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=U-S / INTEL PROBE (S)

NUMBER=2-308062

BYLINE=JIM MALONE

DATELINE=WASHINGTON

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: The Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation into whether anyone in the White House was responsible for leaking the name of a covert C-I-A operative. National correspondent Jim Malone has the latest.

TEXT: A White House spokesman says President Bush has ordered his staff to cooperate fully with the Justice Department investigation.

Investigators will try to determine whether someone in the White House revealed the identity of a covert C-I-A operative who is married to a prominent critic of the Bush administration's use of intelligence to justify the war in Iraq.

Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson has accused the administration of leaking the identity of his wife in retaliation for his undermining an assertion in the president's State of the Union speech that Iraq had tried to buy uranium in Africa.

Democrats like Senator Charles Schumer of New York want the probe conducted by a special investigator outside of the Justice Department.

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I don't think anybody has faith that the Justice Department will do this on its own, particularly if it goes to high levels.

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Disclosure of a covert operative is a violation of federal law punishable by up to ten years in jail. (Signed)

NEB/JBM/RH/KL