Bush's guru is prime suspect for leak [View All]

link: http://www.news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1088252003

JACQUI GODDARD IN MIAMI


PRESIDENT George Bush’s chief strategist found himself centre-stage yesterday as the hunt for the "senior official" who blew the cover of a secret CIA operative turned into a political firestorm.

The White House is dismissive of claims that Karl Rove - variously described as "Bush’s brain" and "the most powerful presidential adviser in a century" - could have been the source who leaked Valerie Plame’s name to a conservative newspaper columnist. However, as the justice department announced that it had now launched a full-scale investigation into the affair, Mr Rove appeared to be having difficulty convincing his detractors that his name should not be in the frame.

"Is John Ashcroft willing to ask Carl Rove to submit to a polygraph?" asked Senator Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, in a rhetorical remark delivered in the US senate.

The trouble centres on a piece written by the conservative commentator Bob Novak in the New York Times in July, which named Ms Plame as a CIA operative who specialised in weapons of mass destruction.