Former insider takes aim at Cheney

VP's Office Behind Illegal Outing of CIA Agent Charges Wilson

Joseph Wilson's book, The Politics of Truth, is the latest volume by a former government insider to take aim at the Bush administration's conduct of the war on terror.

Mr Wilson - who served in Africa and Iraq and was the last American diplomat to meet Saddam Hussein - returned to prominence last July when he published a newspaper article accusing the White House of twisting intelligence on Iraq's pursuit of a nuclear weapons programme to bolster the case for invasion.

Soon afterwards, administration officials leaked the identity of his wife, Valerie Plame, an undercover CIA official tracking the international trade in weapons of mass destruction.

The leak represented a serious felony under US law and a federal investigation is nearing completion in Washington into who was responsible.

"It's coming to a close, and my understanding is there are going to be indictments," said one source familiar with the investigation.

Mr Wilson comes closest to blaming Mr Libby for his wife's unmasking. "The man attacking my integrity and reputation - and, I believe, possibly the person who exposed my wife's identity - was the same Scooter Libby..." he writes.

"He is one of a handful of senior officials in the administration with both the means and the motive to conduct the covert inquiry that allowed some in the White House to learn my wife's name and status, and then disclose that information to the press."

He also names Elliott Abrams, a senior White House adviser on the Middle East, and Karl Rove, the political mastermind behind the president's re-election strategy, as members of that group.

"According to my sources, between March 2003 and the appearance of my article in July, the workup on me that turned up the information on Valerie was shared with Karl Rove, who then circulated it in administration and neo-conservative circles,"

More from Amazon - In 1991, President George H. W. Bush called Ambassador Joseph Wilson a "True American Hero." In 2003, senior officials in President George W. Bush’s White House tried to intimidate critics and punish Wilson for what he knew—and finally made public—about the administration’s lies before the invasion of Iraq.

The disclosure of the undercover identity of Wilson’s wife, CIA operative Valerie Plame, was an unprecedented and potentially criminal act.

THE POLITICS OF TRUTH tells the revealing story of this courageous American diplomat and his pivotal career in foreign policy, from telling Saddam Hussein to leave Kuwait to confronting the White House leaks that have breached national security.