US: The embarrassment for the White House over the leak of a CIA agent's name deepened at the weekend with the revelation that it had also blown the cover of a shadowy company that was a CIA front, writes Conor O'Clery in New York.
Also yesterday the agent's husband, former ambassador Robert Wilson, claimed there were two waves of leaks, the first "potentially criminal" leaks to six journalists, and the second wave by officials pushing the story after it had been published.
Mr Wilson's wife, Ms Valerie Plame, used an obscure energy company called Brewster-Jennings & Associates as her CIA cover. She listed it as her employer on an electoral contributions form in 1999 when she donated $1,000 to Mr Al Gore's presidential primary campaign. Administration officials confirmed the firm was a CIA front which she used when working undercover as a specialist in weapons of mass destruction.
A search of LexisNexis and Google did not turn up any reference to the company but it is listed by Dun & Bradstreet, a consultancy that compiles a data base on millions of companies.
The disclosure means that other CIA secrets could be uncovered and Ms Plame's sources compromised.
Ms Plame was "outed" in a July 14th newspaper column by commentator Robert Novak, who cited two senior administration officials as his source.
Ms Plame was an "NOC", meaning she worked overseas under non-official cover and not out of an embassy, Time Magazine reported yesterday. Many in her family did not know she worked for the agency.
"Her career as an undercover operative is over," former CIA officer Jim Marcinkowski, told Time. A classmate of Ms Plame's at a CIA school for spies and now a prosecutor in Michigan, Mr Marcinkowski said she was the best shot in the class with an AT-47.
"She will no longer be safe travelling overseas," he said. "I liken that to the knee-capping of an athlete."
The leak was apparent retaliation for Mr Wilson's public charge in July that the Bush administration had used discredited evidence to justify war. Mr Wilson had been sent to Niger in 2002 by the CIA to check a claim that Iraq tried to buy uranium. He reported it was bogus but Mr Bush still used it in his January State of the Union address.
Time reported that government officials then began to raise questions about Mr Wilson's veracity, telling reporters off the record that his evidence was thin, his homework was shoddy and that he had been sent to Niger by the CIA only because his wife had nominated him for the job. The leakers also hinted that the CIA had deliberately chosen someone who would be sceptical.
Mr Wilson's finding was however borne out by the chief US weapons inspector, Dr David Kay, who delivered an interim report to Congress last week. He found no evidence of any Iraq attempt to buy uranium from Niger.
The former ambassador and his wife have hired a lawyer to consider legal actions against people they believe have impugned their characters. These could include conservative commentators, who have questioned his professionalism on air and in the newspapers.
Mr Wilson claimed yesterday that a journalist told him Mr Bush's political strategist, Mr Karl Rove, had said his wife was "fair game. I have every confidence that he and the White House communications office continued to push the story."
The Justice Department began a formal criminal investigation of the leak on September 26th and 2,000 White House staff have until tomorrow to turn over any records relating to Mr Wilson or contacts with journalists about him.
The FBI has also begun contacting journalists.
The leak controversy has highlighted the difficulties faced by CIA director Mr George Tenet, who is under fire from some Republicans for inadequate intelligence on Iraq, and from Democrats for hyping intelligence to support President Bush's desire to confront Saddam Hussein.
Some reports said that a rift was emerging between the CIA and the White House, though Mr Tenet and Mr Bush have a close personal relationship.
One account said the CIA director was dismayed at what he sees as exaggerations of Iraq's link to al-Qaeda and its nuclear weapons programme offered by Vice-President Dick Cheney's office.
Mr Cheney in two weekend speeches continued to link Saddam Hussein with al-Qaeda despite the lack of any conclusive evidence. In Pennsylvania he claimed that Iraq had "an established relationship with al-Qaeda", and that "al-Qaeda was being hosted in north-eastern Iraq". He did not say that the group he referred to had been outside Baghdad's territorial control. Mr Cheney also said part of the security threat in Iraq today came from "al-Qaeda, who were there before and who are there since we've gone in".
Support for the Iraq operation is waning with only 37 per cent of Americans convinced the country is on the right track, according to the latest poll.