Former White House official Lewis "Scooter" Libby told a grand jury in 2004 that Vice President Dick Cheney was upset by an ambassador's public questioning of the Iraq war and that President Bush, Cheney and Libby were involved in a plan -- kept secret from other senior White House officials -- to leak previously classified intelligence to counter the criticism.
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Libby can be heard describing how Cheney was upset when Wilson went public with allegations that the White House had twisted intelligence to make the case for war. In an op-ed article, Wilson said he had been sent to investigate a key claim -- that Iraq was seeking uranium from the African nation of Niger -- and found it untrue, months before President Bush included the allegation in his 2003 State of the Union speech.
"It was a serious accusation," Libby said. "It was a very serious attack." It also quickly became a "topic that was discussed on a daily basis" in the White House.Libby said that Cheney "thought we should get some of these facts out to the press. He then undertook to get permission from the president to talk about this" to reporters. More
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