WASHINGTON, May 30 (UPI) -- The top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee said he wants to again interview former CIA officer Valerie Plame.
Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., said Plame has given inconsistent accounts of how her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, was sent to Africa to investigate reports that Iraq was trying to get uranium there, USA Today reported.
A newly released 2002 CIA memo said Plame suggested her husband for the trip, but Plame told the Senate Committee in March that a colleague suggested Wilson, Bond said.
Bond told USA Today he has asked the CIA for permission to interview Plame again.
Wilson wrote a New York Times column criticizing the White House for its use of intelligence before the Iraq war, including U.S. President George Bush's claim that Iraq was seeking nuclear fuel in Niger. Days later, Plame's identity as a CIA operative was exposed in a column by Robert Novak.
Plame's lawyer, Melanie Sloan, told USA Today questioning her account now is an attempt to divert attention from the "real wrong here -- a White House that outed a covert operative and undermined national security."
