President George W. Bush's failure to take action against a top aide involved in the outing of a covert CIA operative sends "the wrong message" overseas, former U.S. intelligence officials said on Friday according to Reuters. At a hearing sponsored by Democrats, the retired agents said U.S. intelligence gathering had been damaged by the leak of Valerie Plame's name two years ago after her husband, former diplomat Joseph Wilson, criticized the White House's justification for going to war in Iraq. Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper told a federal grand jury that presidential adviser Karl Rove told him that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA, but did not disclose her name. Cooper has also said he discussed the Wilsons with Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff. "What has suffered irreversible damage is the credibility of our case officers when they try to convince an overseas contact that their safety is of primary importance to us," Jim Marcinkowski, a former CIA case officer, said.
