Washington – Former CIA operative Valerie Plame lost a lawsuit Thursday that demanded money from Bush administration officials whom she blamed for leaking her agency identity.
Plame, the wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, had accused Vice President Dick Cheney and others of conspiring to disclose her identity in 2003. Plame said that act violated her privacy rights and was illegal retribution for her husband’s criticism of the administration.
U.S. District Judge John D. Bates dismissed the civil case on jurisdictional grounds and said he would not express an opinion on the constitutional arguments.
Bates dismissed the case against all defendants: Cheney, White House political adviser Karl Rove, former White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby and former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.
Plame’s lawyers said from the beginning the suit would be a difficult case to make. Public officials normally are immune from such suits filed in connection with their jobs.
Plame’s identity was revealed in a newspaper column in 2003, shortly after Wilson began criticizing the administration’s march to war in Iraq. Armitage and Rove were the sources for that article.
PAILIN, Cambodia
Khmer Rouge leader denies role in killings
The highest-ranking Khmer Rouge leader still alive denied any responsibility for the deaths of 1.7 million Cambodians during the party’s brutal 1975-79 rule, saying without hesitation Thursday that he is ready to be judged by an international tribunal.
“I will go to the court and don’t care if people believe me or not,” Nuon Chea said a day after prosecutors at the tribunal examining the mass deaths submitted a confidential list of five former Khmer Rouge leaders they believe should be tried. Judges will decide whether to proceed with indictments.
Nuon Chea is known as “Brother No. 2” in the Khmer Rouge, right-hand man to the late Pol Pot.
“I was president of the National Assembly and had nothing to do with the operation of the government,” the 82-year-old said.
WASHINGTON
Man denies stealing, selling nuclear secrets
A contract employee at a nuclear-material cleanup site in Tennessee pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges that he stole classified information about enriching uranium to sell to foreign governments.
Roy Lynn Oakley, 65, of Roane County, Tenn., was detained in January after he allegedly tried to sell the sensitive material to undercover FBI agents. He surrendered to authorities Thursday.
Oakley was a maintenance worker at a cleanup site that once housed the government’s gaseous-diffusion plant used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons, the Energy Department said.
WASHINGTON
Occupants say FEMA trailers made them ill
Lawyers for the government’s disaster-relief agency discouraged officials from pursuing reports that trailers housing hurricane victims had dangerous levels of formaldehyde, according to documents released Thursday.
Lawmakers said they were infuriated. At a House hearing, they listened to three trailer occupants whose families suspect formaldehyde is to blame for their various illnesses.
Democrats and Republicans criticized the Federal Emergency Management Agency for its limited inspections or tests of trailers whose occupants reported various respiratory problems.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee subpoenaed records showing agency lawyers warned officials of potential liability problems if tests suggested government negligence.
SAN FRANCISCO
VA ordered to pay retroactive benefits
An appeals court chastised the Department of Veterans Affairs on Thursday and ordered the agency to pay retroactive benefits to Vietnam War vets who were exposed to Agent Orange and contracted a form of leukemia.
The VA “has contributed substantially to our sense of national shame,” the opinion from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals read.
It was not immediately known how much the department would have to pay under the order or how many veterans would be affected.
The VA agreed in 2003 to extend benefits to Vietnam vets diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia, known as CLL. U.S. troops had sprayed 20 million gallons of Agent Orange and other herbicides over parts of South Vietnam and Cambodia in the 1960s and ’70s to clear dense jungle, and researchers later linked CLL to Agent Orange.
But the VA did not re-examine previous claims from veterans suffering from the ailment, nor did it pay them retroactive benefits, which was at the heart of the latest dispute.
