Quote:

the G-man said:
...former deputy secretary of State Richard Armitage...was one of a handful of top officials who had access to the information.

If Armitage was the original leaker, that undercuts the argument that outing Plame was a plot by the hard-liners in the veep's office to "out" Plame. Armitage was, if anything, a foe of the neocons who did not want to go to war in Iraq. He had no motive to discredit Wilson.



BRADLEE IDS FIRST PLAME LEAKER

    Ben Bradlee, the Washington Post editor who helped expose the Watergate scandal, says former Secretary of State Colin Powell's top deputy, Richard Armitage, was the first member of the Bush administration to leak the fact that Valerie Plame was a CIA agent, Vanity Fair magazine reports in its new edition.

    "That Armitage is the likely source is a fair assumption," the magazine quotes Bradlee as saying.

    Bradlee's remarks raise questions as to why special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald indicted Libby but not Armitage, who testified to a grand jury without 'fessing up