It's an article of faith that Rove (or someone around him) leaked Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA agent in retaliation for her hubby's NYT op-ed discrediting one of the pillars of the administration case for invading Iraq. Economaniac disagrees:

"At the time [July of 2003] the administration was flush with success and still confident that they would find illegal weapons. They were sorting Washington into good guys (who supported the war) and bad guys (who questioned it). When Wilson came up they asked around 'Who is this guy' and learned he was married to a CIA WMD analyst. That made him a bad guy, so they share the news with Novak, as a way of discrediting Wilson. It wasn't about retaliation, it was about tarnishing Wilson by tying him to the antiwar faction at CIA. The White House knows Plame as an analyst who refused to support their prowar view. They have been fighting these internal battles for months; now that they have won the war those Saddam lovers are out. I doubt anyone even thought about her being covert."