WASHINGTON, July 22: A former US ambassador who earlier this month alleged the US government exaggerated the nuclear threat posed by Iraq, accused the White House on Tuesday of trying to punish and discredit him for his outspoken remarks.

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,” Mr 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. Mr 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 Joseph 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 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 programmes or projects she was working on” which would be compromised, he said.—AFP