Last week, it was revealed that Scooter Libby told a federal grand jury that his “superiors,” including Vice President Cheney, had authorized him in the summer of 2003 to leak classified information to help defend the administration’s Iraq policy.

Sens. George Allen (R-VA) and Jack Reed (D-RI) were asked about the revelations today on Fox News Sunday. Both Reed and Allen (a top presidential hopeful among conservative activists) said the Cheney leak needs to be investigated:

REED: I think it’s inappropriate, I think it’s wrong, and I think that this calls into question in terms of [Fitzgerald's] investigation of the conduct of the Vice President and others, perhaps. And I think he has to look closely at their behavior. And again, it just seems to me —

WALLACE: You’re saying he should be investigating the Vice President?

REED: Whoever the superiors are that are supposedly allegedly leaked or authorized a leak by the individual in question, Mr. Libby, I think the investigation has to go forward.

WALLACE: Senator Allen?

ALLEN: The prosecutor here, Mr. Fitzgerald, seems to me to be a very articulate, professional prosecutor, and I think the facts will lead wherever they lead, and I think he will prosecute as appropriate. … I don’t think anybody should be releasing classified information, period, whether in the Congress, Executive Branch or some underling in some bureaucracy.

For more on why Cheney need to be investigated, read CIA director Porter Goss’ editorial, Loose Lips Sink Spies.

Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) sounds the alarm on Iraq:

WOLF BLITZER: A lot of people around the world here in the United States warning of Iran’s nuclear ambitions and saying, ‘You know what, we heard the same warnings about Iraq and it’s now been proven the U.S. was wrong.’ How concerned are you that U.S. intelligence has it right right now, if they do have it right?

HAGEL: Well, intelligence is always imperfect. We understand that. It’s a mosaic of pieces, and it’s judgment, and how you use those pieces coming together with some judgment that then will result in a policy. I go back to the conversation we just had here, the three of us, over the last five minutes about Iran. We must be very careful what we’re doing here, because in my opinion, three years in Iraq, things haven’t gone the way the administration said and others said it was going to go. In fact, I think we’re in more trouble today than we’ve ever been in Iraq…

UPDATE: On the same program, former Iraqi prime minister, Ayad Allawi said he was worried that a civil war would errupt in Iraq: Read more