Salt Lake Tribune - CIA spy's husband says fire Karl Rove

Word to Bush: The former ambassador says the leak of his wife's identity was unforgivable
By Thomas Burr
The Salt Lake Tribune
Salt Lake Tribune

WASHINGTON - Joseph Wilson, the former ambassador whose wife was outed as a CIA agent after he criticized the Bush administration, said Monday that he takes no pleasure in a senior White House official's indictment. Still, he called for the president to fire his top adviser, Karl Rove, who has not been criminally charged.
"And I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I don't believe Mr. Rove should be permitted to resign. I believe that this is a firing offense," Wilson said at a speech to the National Press Club, two blocks from the White House. "To be so cavalier in the handling of the secrets of this great nation really is an abuse of the public trust."
Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada also has called for Rove to be fired.
Wilson's speech comes three days after Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, was indicted on felony charges of perjury, false statements and obstruction of justice. He resigned the same day.
Rove, Bush's deputy chief of staff, has not been indicted but remains under investigation in connection with the leak of classified information about Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, to reporters.
"It gives me no great pleasure that a senior official of our government, who swears an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States, has now been accused of impeding a federal investigation into a leak of the national security of my country," Wilson said.
Wilson, who has said he is buying a home in Utah near Snowbasin Ski Resort, was sent by the CIA to the African nation of Niger to investigate claims that Saddam Hussein was attempting to buy 500 tons of "yellowcake" uranium, which could be used to make nuclear bombs. Wilson says the claims were false and he reported that back to the CIA, yet the president still cited the claims in the State of the Union speech. The White House later acknowledged the claim was incorrect.
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, has criticized Wilson as untrustworthy, citing a report by the Senate Intelligence Committee that raised questions about Wilson's findings in Niger.
"This man does not deserve to be listened to," Hatch said in an interview following Libby's indictment. He called Wilson a publicity hound.
Hatch also said on CNN's Situation Room last week that there are "real questions about his activities" and that "I wouldn't particularly place much stock in Ambassador Wilson."
Wilson's attorney, Christopher Wolf, told The Salt Lake Tribune on Monday that he wasn't sure what Hatch was referring to and disagreed with his comments.
"The time for Wilson-bashing is over. . . . It never should have started," Wolf said. He then challenged Hatch with a line made famous as a counter to Senate redbaiting of the 1950s: ''Have you no sense of decency?"