Bob Woodward testifies in CIA leak probe

WASHINGTON: The CIA leak probe on Wednesday ensnared Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward, who disclosed that he was told about CIA operative Valerie Plame nearly a month before her secret identity was revealed and apologised to his editor for keeping him in the dark.   

The disclosure that Woodward gave a sworn deposition on Monday to special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald comes more than two weeks after the indictment and resignation of Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, and after Fitzgerald said the bulk of his probe was complete.   

In his testimony to Fitzgerald, Woodward said he revealed under oath that a senior Bush administration official casually told him in mid-June 2003 about Plame’s position at the CIA.

It also prompted the Post’s executive editor to publicly chastise one of the best-known journalists in the US for withholding the information from him.

One of the two Post reporters who led the newspaper’s coverage of the 1970s Watergate scandal that brought down President Richard Nixon.