Former undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame, whose outing sparked a major scandal rocking the White House, was working to track Iran's nuclear program before her name was revealed in 2003, according to US media.

MSNBC television reporter David Shuster said Monday that leaking of her identity as a CIA spy to reporters damaged the US effort to follow what Washington believes are Iranian efforts to develop nuclear weapons.

"Intelligence sources say Valerie Wilson was part of an operation three years ago tracking the proliferation of nuclear weapons material into Iran.

"And the sources allege that when Mrs. Wilson's cover was blown, the administration's ability to track Iran's nuclear ambitions was damaged as well," Shuster said on the "Hardball" program.

The same report was made earlier on the investigative website Raw Story, which cited unnamed intelligence officials as saying Plame's outing "carries grave implications for US national security."

On Tuesday Senator Frank Lautenberg called on CIA chief Porter Goss to provide the Senate with a "national security damage assessment" based on the reports that Plame's outing damaged efforts to investigate Iran.

"If this report is true, the disclosure of her identity has caused harm to our national security," Lautenberg wrote in a letter to Goss.

A government prosecutor is currently investigating whether top White House officials deliberately exposed Plame's identity in July 2003 to get back at her diplomat husband, Joseph Wilson, for attacking the government's reasons for invading Iraq.

Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse

###