Plame agrees to testify before Congress

WASHINGTON — Valerie Plame, the CIA officer exposed after her husband criticized President Bush's march to war, will testify next week before lawmakers investigating how the White House dealt with her identity, the chairman of the panel said Thursday.

Also invited to testify March 16 before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor who this week won conviction of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby on charges of obstruction and perjury in the case, said Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif.

Waxman said Plame has accepted the invitation; Fitzgerald has not yet responded.

The hearing will be the first public forum at which Plame has agreed to answer questions. At a news conference in July announcing a civil lawsuit against Libby and other Bush administration officials, Plame read a short statement but did not respond to questions.

"The trial proceedings raise questions about whether senior White House officials, including the vice president and Senior Adviser to the President Karl Rove, complied with the requirements governing the handling of classified information," Waxman wrote in his invitation to Fitzgerald. "They also raise questions about whether the White House took appropriate remedial action following the leak and whether the existing requirements are sufficient to protect against future leaks. Your perspective on these matters is important."

Fitzgerald has made clear that, unlike earlier independent counsels appointed under a law now expired, he is not required to submit investigative reports to Congress.

"I think we should conduct this like any other criminal investigation: charge someone or be quiet," Fitzgerald said when he announced Libby's indictment.

Libby's attorneys, who are expected to ask for a new trial, told jurors that Libby was made a scapegoat while Rove, former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer and former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage were the actual leakers.