Two Sides to Story of CIA's Alleged Leaker

President Bush arrives with CIA Director Porter Goss, left, to talk to reporters after he received an intelligence briefing at Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Langley, Va., near Washington, in this Thursday, March 3, 2005, file photo. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) (J. Scott Applewhite - AP)

Yet Johnson, a critic of the Bush administration, defends McCarthy today. "This administration thinks just because you make a political contribution to some campaign, you are tainted," he said. "This administration is trying to conduct a political purge."

McCarthy has given $7,700 to Democratic campaigns in the past three election cycles; her husband has donated $2,500, according to public records. While CIA employees face restrictions on political activity under the Hatch Act, they are allowed to donate to candidates.

Johnson said McCarthy never suggested to him that she had a political view or shaped intelligence to conform to an ideology.

McCarthy went on to the National Intelligence Council, the government's most senior analysis office, and then the Clinton White House, where she served as a senior intelligence adviser on the National Security Council staff.

McCarthy was not afraid to go against the grain. As the White House was considering al-Qaida targets to strike in retaliation for the 1998 African embassy bombings, McCarthy questioned the strength of the intelligence about a pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, Sudan. According to the Sept. 11 Commission, some officials believed al-Shifa was manufacturing a precursor to a nerve agent, with Osama bin Laden's financial support.

"We will need much better intelligence on this facility before we seriously consider any options," McCarthy said in a memo to National Security Adviser Sandy Berger outlining her concerns.

Berger told the commission he was worried about a possible chemical attack, if al-Shifa wasn't attacked. With the Monica Lewinsky scandal consuming front pages, President Clinton decided to attack with cruise missiles there and in Afghanistan. He was accused of trying to distract from the scandal.

As House Intelligence chairman, Goss said in a March 2004 interview that he thought there had been a "lousy choice" of targets.

McCarthy left the National Security Council shortly after Bush took office in 2001.

She then went to law school at Georgetown University and was a visiting fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Cobb said she announced her retirement from the CIA and hoped to practice public service law, working on adoptions.

The accusation of media contacts, however, has tainted a career that ended in the CIA inspector general's office, where her work included investigations into allegations of agency involvement in torture at Iraqi prisons.

The National Whistleblower Center says McCarthy could have a strong case to contest her firing. House Intelligence Chairman Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., sees her actions differently.

"This person in the CIA thought that they were above the law," he said on "Fox News Sunday." "They have put America at risk. They have put our troops on the front lines at risk."