From The Nation
By David Corn

One mystery solved.

It was Richard Armitage, when he was deputy secretary of state in July 2003, who first disclosed to conservative columnist Robert Novak that the wife of former ambassador Joseph Wilson was a CIA employee.

A Newsweek article–based on the new book I cowrote with Newsweek correspondent Michael Isikoff, Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal and the Selling of the Iraq War–discloses that Armitage passed this classified information to Novak during a July 8, 2003 interview. Though Armitage’s role as Novak’s primary source has been a subject of speculation, the case is now closed. Our sources for this are three government officials who spoke to us confidentially and who had direct knowledge of Armitage’s conversation with Novak. Carl Ford Jr., who was head of the State Department’s intelligence branch at the time, told us–on the record–that after Armitage testified before the grand jury investigating the leak case, he told Ford, “I’m afraid I may be the guy that caused the whole thing.”

Ford recalls Armitage said he had “slipped up” and had told Novak more that he should have. According to Ford, Armitage was upset that “he was the guy that fucked up.”

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