In an interview with NBC television, former ambassador Joseph Wilson alleged that press leaks from the White House have attempted to malign him in an effort to dissuade others from speaking out.

"What I'm most worried about, most concerned about is that it is probably intended to intimidate others, and keep them from stepping forward," Wilson said.

He said that what he considers "the most serious allegation" appears in US media reports asserting that his wife is a Central Intelligence Agency spy. Wilson said reporters he spoke to about the reports cite "senior administration" officials as their source.

"That basically means that somebody at the political level of the administration," said Wilson, a former acting US ambassador to Iraq.

He would neither confirm nor deny whether his wife works for the CIA, but said officials in the George W. Bush administration might have violated the law if she is, in fact, a US intelligence operative and was exposed as such by US officials.

"It would be damaging not just to her career ... it would be her entire network that she may have established, any operations, any programs or projects she was working on" which would be compromised, he said.

"It's a breach of national security," said Wilson. "My understanding is it may, in fact, be a violation of American law," he told NBC.

"I fully expect the appropriate authorities will look into it, as well they should, if, in fact, it is a violation of US law," he said.

In a July 6 opinion piece published in The New York Times, Wilson refuted Bush administration claims that Iraq tried to purchase uranium from Niger, writing in the article that "some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat."

US officials claimed that Iraq possessed banned chemical, biological and nuclear weapons as they sought UN approval to invade Iraq on the grounds that the Gulf nation posed an immediate threat to the United States.

Officials cited as proof a British intelligence report that Saddam Hussein was trying to acquire nuclear materials from Niger.

White House officials have since said it was a mistake to use the now discredited claims.

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