WASHINGTON — Prosecutors investigating whether Bush administration officials disclosed the name of an undercover CIA operative to news reporters have focused on a 2003 State Department memo that investigators believe might help point to the source of the leak, according to those directly familiar with the proceedings.
The memo detailed how a former diplomat was chosen to investigate claims that Iraq had sought to purchase uranium from the African nation of Niger, and it included a description of the role that the CIA operative, who was the diplomat's wife, played in suggesting his name for the assignment.
Prosecutors have been asking key witnesses whether they had seen the document.
The former diplomat, Joseph C. Wilson IV, came to national attention in July 2003 after he wrote an op-ed article in the New York Times suggesting that the Bush administration had manipulated intelligence to exaggerate Baghdad's nuclear weapons program and justify the invasion of Iraq. After his article appeared, his wife's name and CIA status were leaked to columnist Robert Novak in what critics of the administration have alleged was an act of retribution.
A probe was launched in 2003 to determine whether anyone deliberately leaked the name of Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame. It is a felony to knowingly reveal the identity of covert personnel.
The memo was sent by State Department officials to then- Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who according to news reports has testified before the grand jury. Powell had the memo with him on Air Force One when President Bush traveled to Africa on July 7, 2003, the day after Wilson's piece was published, according to a person with knowledge of the investigation.
What happened on Air Force One has been of interest to prosecutors, who want to know whether anyone who saw the memo learned Plame's identity and told it to journalists.
Telephone logs from the presidential aircraft have been subpoenaed. Among those on the flight was then-Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, who has testified before the grand jury.
Fleischer declined to comment for this article, referring all questions to prosecutors. But in a Sept. 29, 2003, e-mail to The Times, Fleischer denied he was the source of the leak. "I have no idea who told Novak, but it was not me," he wrote.
Investigators' apparent focus on the memo was first reported Saturday by the New York Times. But not everyone with knowledge of the memo finds it to be significant.
