In a mammoth 5,500-word piece Thursday headlined "A CIA Cover Blown, A White House Exposed,"� Tom Hamburger and Sonni Efron lay out in The Los Angeles Times what happened in the days leading up to, and beyond, the now infamous July 2003 leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's name to the press.
"Beyond the whodunit," they write, "the affair raises questions about the credibility of the Bush White House, the tactics it employs against political opponents and the justification it used for going to war."
The article includes some fresh revelations or comments. For example, it notes that allies of Karl Rove defend his talks with reporters in which he tried to counter claims by former Ambassador Joseph Wilson. Then it adds that "some of Rove's colleagues say that he and others used poor judgment in talking about Wilson's wife. 'With the benefit of hindsight, it's clear our focus should have been on Wilson's facts, not his conclusions or his wife or his politics,' said one official who was helping with White House strategy at the time."
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