Report: Plan to discredit Wilson revealed

WASHINGTON, April 9 (UPI) -- Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald says Vice President Cheney was part of a concerted action to discredit a critic of the war in Iraq.

Fitzgerald says grand jury testimony from the vice president's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, shows that Cheney was the first to voice the White House line of attack against former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, The Washington Post reported.

In a conversation with Libby in early July 2003, Cheney allegedly described Wilson's CIA-sponsored trip to Niger-- in which the envoy found no support for charges that Iraq tried to buy uranium there -- as "a junket set up by Mr. Wilson's wife," CIA case officer Valerie Plame, the newspaper said.

Libby is charged with perjury and obstruction of justice for allegedly denying under oath that he disclosed Plame's CIA employment to journalists. The Washington Post said there is no public evidence to suggest Libby made any such disclosure with Cheney's knowledge. Libby testified, however, that Cheney "specifically directed" him to leak classified information about Wilson's visit to Niger, the newspaper said.