WASHINGTON, Oct 24: A standoff between the New York Times and one of its star reporters has cast new doubts about US reporting before the Iraq invasion and alleged White House efforts to shape pre-war intelligence.

The blow-up went public on Saturday, when the Times said its prize-winning reporter Judith Miller “seems to have misled” the newspaper after being ordered to be a witness in the investigation into the leaking of a CIA operative’s name.

The Times had previously staunchly defended Miller, who spent nearly three months in jail for refusing to reveal the identity of the White House source who spoke to her about the case.

In a memorandum to staff reported by the newspaper, executive editor Bill Keller said he now regrets not having more closely monitored reporting by Miller, whose dossier included Middle East and national security affairs.

The journalist is now a central figure in an investigation by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald into whether a White House official illegally leaked the name of Valerie Plame, a CIA operative.

Plame is the wife of Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador who says the leak was a deliberate act because of his criticism of the Iraq war.

Keller said he now wishes he had carried out a “thorough debriefing” with Miller after she had been subpoenaed, and added that the Times missed “what should have been significant alarm bells” about her involvement in the case.

What he did not know, Keller told Times staffers, was that “Judy had been one of the reporters on the receiving end of the anti-Wilson whisper campaign.”

And had he known of her “entanglement” with Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, he might have been more willing to cooperate with Fitzgerald.

Miller still defends her decision to protect Libby, her White House source, as Fitzgerald this week wraps up his investigation. Washington is abuzz with rumours of possible charges against top White House officials, including Libby and top White House guru Karl Rove.

The case is the latest black eye for the US media, which has been criticized for not being sufficiently critical of White House actions prior to the Iraq invasion.

Miller, whose reporting of pre-war Iraq intelligence has been criticized by some as flawed, told a congressional committee last week that she had done the best possible “under rather challenging circumstances.”

“Reporters, even flawed reporters, should not be jailed for protecting even flawed sources,” said Miller.

In Saturday’s New York Times article Miller, who is on leave from the Times, is reported as saying her boss’s statements about her role in the Plame case were “seriously inaccurate.”—AFP