Washington ? Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was not the senior Bush administration official who told Washington Post editor Bob Woodward that White House critic Joseph Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA, a Rice aide said Saturday.

“Secretary Rice wasn’t Woodward’s source,” Rice senior adviser Jim Wilkinson said.

Rice was President Bush’s White House national security adviser in June 2003, when Woodward says a highly placed official told him of Valerie Plame’s CIA connection. Woodward has said the source was someone other than I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff and the only person indicted in a federal probe of the leak case.

Rice took over from Colin Powell as the nation’s top diplomat in January. She is traveling with Bush in Asia this week, as is her successor as national security adviser, Stephen Hadley.

Hadley won’t say if he was Woodward’s source. But Hadley volunteered on Friday that some administration officials say he’s not the leaker.

Hadley was asked at a news briefing in Busan, Korea, whether he was Woodward’s source.

Referring to news accounts about the case, Hadley said with a smile, “I’ve also seen press reports from White House officials saying that I am not one of his sources.” He said he would not comment further because the CIA leak case remains under investigation.