Powell Interviewed in Novak Leak Case

By: (AP) The U.S. grand jury investigating the leak of an undercover CIA operative's name has interviewed Secretary of State Colin Powell, but he is not a subject of the inquiry, the State Department said Sunday.

Department spokesman Richard Boucher, traveling with Powell on a diplomatic visit to Poland, said Powell appeared on July 16 at the grand jury's invitation. "The secretary is not a subject of inquiry," Boucher said. "He was pleased to cooperate with the grand jury."

Powell is the latest official from the Bush administration to be called before the grand jury in Washington.

White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and spokesman Scott McClellan have been summoned, and grand jury investigators have interviewed President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney in their offices.

Powell's appearance was first reported Sunday by Newsweek.

The grand jury investigation is to determine who leaked the name of Valerie Plame to syndicated columnist Robert Novak last July. Disclosure of an undercover officer's identity can be a federal crime.

Novak revealed Plame's work for the CIA a week after her husband, Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador, criticized Bush's claim in the 2003 State of the Union address that Iraq had tried to obtain uranium from Niger, a major uranium-exporting nation in Africa.

The CIA had sent Wilson to Niger in mid-1992 to check the allegation, and he concluded it was unfounded. The administration has acknowledged that its inclusion in the State of the Union address was a mistake.

In printing Plame's name, Novak wrote that two administration officials said Wilson's wife suggested that he be sent to Niger.

Boucher referred questions about Powell's testimony to the Justice Department because grand jury operations are secret.

Asked whether Powell called or talked to Novak about Wilson's wife, Boucher said: "Of course not!"