Senior Bush administration officials responded Sunday to allegations that White House officials revealed the identity of a CIA agent in an apparent retaliatory move against her husband. "The Justice Department will now take appropriate action, whatever that is," National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press." MSNBC.com and NBC News reported Friday that the Justice Department has launched an investigation into the allegations.

The disclosure of the agent's identity by syndicated columnist Robert Novak came shortly after her husband had undermined President Bush's claim that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from Africa.

TheWashington Post reportedin Monday editions that White House officials said they would turn over phone logs if the Justice Department asked them to do so. But the aides said Bush had no plans to ask staff members whether they were involved in revealing the name of the man's wife.

The president's national security adviser said she was unaware of any White House involvement in the matter.

"I know nothing about any such calls and I do know that the president of the United States would not expect his White House to behave in that way," Condoleezza Rice toldNBC's Tim Russert

Rice told "Fox News Sunday" the same thing, in almost identical language. "I know nothing of any such White House effort to reveal any of this, and it certainly would not be the way that the president would expect his White House to operate."

Secretary of State Colin Powell said he knew nothing about the matter. Powell told ABC's "This Week" that he thought that if the CIA believed the identity of one of its agents have been revealed, it had an obligation to ask the Justice Department to look into the matter. But he added: "Other than that, I don't know anything about the matter."

An administration official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity confirmed that the Justice Department has received a request from CIA Director George Tenet to look into the matter.

Speaking on "Meet the Press," Rep. Richard Gephardt of Missouri, a Democratic presidential candidate, said Bush personally should "investigate what happened ... And people ought to be punished for doing this."

TWO LAWS AT ISSUE

The department and the FBI now are trying to determine whether there was a violation of the law and, if so, then whether a full criminal investigation is warranted, the official told The AP.

NBC News' Andrea Mitchell reported Friday that the CIA asked Justice to investigate whether White House officials blew Valerie Plame's cover in retaliation against former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV. Revealing the identities of covert officials is a violation of two laws, the National Agents' Identity Act and the Unauthorized Release of Classified Information Act.

The flap began in January when Bush said in his State of the Union address that British intelligence officials had learned that Iraq had attempted to purchase yellowcake uranium in Africa.

The administration has since had to repudiate the claim. Tenet said the 16-word sentence should not have been included in Bush's Jan. 28 speech and publicly accepted responsibility for allowing it to remain in the president's text.

'WE SPEND BILLIONS OF DOLLARS'

In an opinion piece published in July by The New York Times, Wilson said he told the CIA long before the president's address that the British reports were suspect.

"We spend billions of dollars on intelligence," Wilson wrote. "But we end up putting something in the State of the Union address, something we got from another intelligence agency, something we cannot independently verify, in an area of Africa where the British have no on-the-ground presence."

The administration has said the assertion should not have been in the speech.

A week after Wilson went public with his criticism, syndicated columnist Novak, quoting anonymous government sources, said Wilson's wife, Plame, was a CIA operative working on the issue of weapons of mass destruction. 

JOURNALISTS CALLED?

A senior administration official cited ina Washington Post report Sundaysaid two top White House officials called at least a half-dozen journalists and revealed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife.

Rice said the matter has been referred to the Justice Department and "I think that's the appropriate place. ... Let's just see what the Justice Department does."

When pressed as to whether anyone at the White House raised concern that the Wilson matter posed a problem for the administration, Rice replied, "I don't remember any such conversation."

She pledged White House cooperation in the Justice Department inquiry.

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