The quote from Robert Novak about his other source was that the source was not a "partisan gunslinger." That would eliminate Rove, Libby, and the other politicals.
That fits Powell, Armitage, and plenty of other people at State and CIA. State commissioned the INR report but CIA undoubtedyl had a copy of it. Remember that when this broke in July of 2003, the CIA was being asked by everyone where the WMD were, since the DOD was not finding them in Iraq. State was dumping on CIA so as to keep Powell's skirts clean, since he took the CIA stuff to the UN.
Hopefully, the rogue anti-Bush group in the CIA who pulled off the Wilson trip to Niger will be outed in this process. And if we're lucky, Pincus at WaPo with his State/CIA contacts will be exposed too.
Yes, the State Department, long known as a nest for Soviet spies and other anti-American mice, cannot be left out of the equation. In fact, Wilson (at State) and Plame (at CIA) were a marriage made in heaven (no pun intended) for colluding to pull off the Wilson-to-Niger scheme to smear Bush and influence the 2004 Presidential election.
There is one person whose name has rarely, if ever, been mentioned during the whole Plame/Wilson scandal - - Porter Goss. Goss is a loyal, conservative, take-no-prisoners Republican. I have no doubt that he has been digging around behind the scenes and even possibly communicating with former CIA Director George H. W. Bush.
This whole "scandal" smells to me like another masterstroke bait-and-switch set-up by Karl Rove.
Actually, State was dumping on Powell, too. One of Wilson's buddies is former State employee Greg Thielman and he was slamming Powell left and right.
"The quote from Robert Novak about his other source was that the source was not a "partisan gunslinger.""
Hint that it was someone who worked in both the Bush AND the Cliton Admin.?