WASHINGTON, July 15: A former CIA agent and her husband urged Americans on Saturday to fund their lawsuit against US Vice-President Dick Cheney and other senior members of the Bush administration for revealing the wife’s affiliation with the spy agency.

Valerie Plame and husband, former Ambassador Joe Wilson, claim Mr Cheney, presidential adviser Karl Rove, and former vice presidential aide Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby leaked her CIA link to the media to silence Mr Wilson, a known critic of President Bush’s Iraq policies.

Days before some media reports identified his wife as a CIA agent, Mr Wilson wrote an article in the New York Times disputing the administration’s claim that former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was making a nuclear bomb.

In Feb 2002, the Bush administration had sent Mr Wilson to Africa to investigate reports that Iraq had purchased uranium from Niger. He found no evidence to support the claim and informed the administration that ‘it is highly doubtful that any such transaction has ever taken place’.

In his article, Mr Wilson accused the administration of ‘twisting’ the intelligence related to Iraq’s nuclear weapons programme ‘to exaggerate the Iraqi threat’.

Mr Wilson and his wife are now seeking unspecified monetary compensation from the administration for a ‘gross invasion of privacy’ that could jeopardise the safety of their children and make Ms Plame a target for America’s enemies.

They have set up a website to help them ‘pay for the substantial legal costs associated with the illegal leaking of Mrs Wilson’s classified CIA status’.

The website says if Mr Wilson and Ms Plame win, they’ll return the money to the trust they’ve established - and distribute it to a charity that ‘works to protect government employees’ rights to speak and helps to defend them from retaliatory action’.