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In Memoir, Ex-Spy Tells Her Side of CIA Leak Case
Wilson Writes of Shock at War Rationale
In a new memoir, former CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson recounts her shock as she watched then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, appearing before the United Nations on the eve of war, deliver what she knew to be a flawed portrait of the intelligence on Iraq."It was a powerful presentation," she wrote, "but I knew key parts of it were wrong."
At the time, Wilson served in an elite branch of the CIA charged with investigating Iraq's suspected weapons programs. In July 2003, four months after the invasion, her name and covert status were disclosed by the Bush administration to members of the media, setting off a leak inquiry that reached inside the White House and ended at the vice president's office.
The disclosures were part of a White House effort to rebut criticism of the Iraq war by her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV. No one was charged with the leak of her name, but Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was convicted of lying to investigators and obstructing the investigation.
In her book, Wilson said that she had neither supported nor opposed the Iraq invasion but that over time, as U.S. casualties mounted, she came to regret it.
She and her colleagues, she wrote, believed that Saddam Hussein was hiding chemical and biological weapons, which she feared would be used against U.S. troops. But there was scant evidence to support those concerns, and she was certain that the president and his aides were publicly exaggerating the nuclear threat posed by Iraq at the time.
"What we struggled so hard to obtain was much too thin and not nearly robust enough to start a war over," she asserts in "Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House." The book, published by Simon & Schuster, is scheduled to go on sale Monday.
The title refers to a comment attributed to Karl Rove, who during his tenure as a White House adviser reportedly told a journalist that "Joe Wilson's wife is fair game" for a White House intent on discrediting the former ambassador. He became a target after he publicly revealed that he had investigated, on behalf of the CIA, reports that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from Niger. A year after he reported that there was no evidence to support the claim, it appeared in Bush's State of the Union speech, two months before the president ordered troops into Iraq.
There are few new details in the book about Joseph Wilson's trip, the leak investigation or the couple's personal lives. Much of that information has appeared in the former ambassador's memoir, which was published in 2004.
Valerie Wilson did write that she regrets having posed for photos in Vanity Fair magazine at the height of the leak investigation, a decision that brought her a CIA reprimand.
She also lashes out at Rove, whom she blames for orchestrating a smear campaign against her husband. She says a similar effort was later mounted against the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.).
"It was classic Karl Rove: Go after your enemy's strong point. In Joe's case it was that he told the truth; in Kerry's case, it was his exemplary military service."
Wilson spent 20 years in the CIA, first in Greece, where she posed as an American diplomat. Later, she lived in Europe as a covert operative. While she traveled the globe, friends, neighbors and even relatives believed that she was on leave from the State Department and that she later became an analyst for an energy company.
None of those facts are included in Wilson's account. They and others were redacted by CIA censors. Wilson fought the redactions in federal district court and lost.
The book contains an afterword that relies on interviews and public records to report biographical details that Wilson was prohibited from including.
Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.
© 2007 The Washington Post
26 Comments so far
Show AllCheney should be tarred and feathered for this destruction of an operative's career because of his ego.
I'm glad Ms. Plame has told her story now, and that Afterword is a smart way to include the government-redacted information that she had originally included.
Bushieboy and Darth Vader Cheney will do anything to anyone that says anything about their total failure at everything. They have been and are still the enemy of this country. This was a national security breach. Which makes them guilty of the breach and should be tried and hung.
I'm sorry, this is not the most erudite of comments, but geesh Valerie sure is a hottie! ;)
"Wilson said that she had neither supported nor opposed the Iraq invasion but that over time, as U.S. casualties mounted, she came to regret it."
Hey Valerie, some of us did actively oppose the invasion. What do you think about that?
"She and her colleagues, she wrote, believed that Saddam Hussein was hiding chemical and biological weapons, which she feared would be used against U.S. troops."
REALLY? Were they so completely clueless or incapable of thinking for themselves?
You did not need to be a CIA analyst to know that Iraq did not have such weapons in militarily usable quantities after the mid-1990s. You did not need access to any classified sources to know that. Enough information was available, particularly the UNSCOM reports, to say nothing of Blix's inspections just before the war, to know for sure, and to know that no secrets you were not privy to would change this assessment.
What do you say about that, Val?
Mark Abram's comment above is right on. I can't have much sympathy for a CIA spy who knew the reasons for invading Iraq were phony and did not speak up. It's too late to have regrets when the body count increases.
It did not take much to figure out the case for the invasion was phony, and many of us protested the invasion before it started - you didn't ahve to be a CIA spy to know. If Valerie Plame was for the invasion, then she was either totally clueless or totally ruthless. It is people in the CIA like her who new and the spineless democrats in congress that let evil men like Cheney, Rumsfelt, and Rove get away with war.
Yeah, what do you say about that, Val?
I think the nature of her job led her to concentrate on trees and completely miss the forest. She lost her ethical perspective. But at least she came to realize how she was being used, how the politics of making the case for war woke her up to the reality of the Bush Administration.
And yes, Zamboni (Zam-boney?), may Joe Wilson forgive me, but she is hot.
Valery Plame was not collateral damage to the attack on Joe Wilson, she was the target. This is so much bigger than Cheney's ego..Cheney and Rumsfeld are the pointmen for arms proliferation, Legal and Illegal worldwide. They have been linked to AQ Khan's spreading of nuclear secrets and technology to rogue states and Plame was one of the leading counter-proliferation agents, part of a deep cover network that was tracking just this sort of traffic. Once in office they had the means to clear off any threats to their operation.
Or maybe I'm just a bit paranoid.
What do I care?!? I don't like Spys anyways. All this eposode in American Politics shows is the outrageous lengths that Power will go - violating their OWN Laws. I say, hang the Lot of them!
No CV I think you have it right.
I love how people who from the safety of their armchairs criticize those who speak up and then faced retribution for doing so...like the Wilsons did. They say you didn't have to be in the CIA to know that Saddam didn't have WMDs. So how did they know? They guessed they must mean. The Wilsons knew and spoke up for our sakes at considerable personal risk to themselves. By them doing so ... that is how we KNEW... not guessed.
Val... is a patriot. What about that Val?
Thank you. History validates you Val even if armchair critics think that they are special ...which they are not. I bet the critic posters never went to a demonstration themselves and thus did nothing to try and stop the war ...themselves but you and your husband did.
What about that Val... thanks.
redjeff @ 5:07pm
"And yes, Zamboni (Zam-boney?), may Joe Wilson forgive me, but she is hot."
~Why the mentions of her temperature I wonder? Maybe she just needs to take her jacket off? - I imagine it's probably quite warm in that room...
__________________________
As to this woman's role in things, well yes, -if one *chooses* to work in a murky role, for a mucky government, then one should expect to emerge besmirched. There are lots of other socially beneficial jobs she and her colleagues might have opted for.
Even maintaining sewers can be a cleaner, more honest and useful role in society than working for the secret services, which *are* indeed secret, -much too secretive usually, but seldom actually *serve* the ordinary people? ~ Generally they predominantly seem to serve the less-than-wholesome crew at the top of the dunghill.
Memo to secret service agents: "If you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas."
____________
A Bunny writes above:
"I bet the critic posters never went to a demonstration themselves and thus did nothing to try and stop the war..."
~ not true in my case, I did as much as I could from the very off, how 'bout you?
Ummm... Buggsy, if you reread my post above, you'll see I say explicitly how anyone with a web browser and a free afternoon in say, 2002, could have learned enough about what was known about Iraq's WMD to reach the conclusion, with near certainty, that they didn't have any in militarily useful quantities. You read the UNSCOM reports and you knew this. If you also took the trouble to look at the various stories alleging otherwise, appearing in the MSM, the right-wing press, and administration statements, you found out that they all leaked bongwater and most had been definitively discredited. All this was in the public record, and there was enough of it to exclude any reasonable possibility that some secret information only Dick Cheney and Doug Feith were privy to would lead you to a different conclusion.
Then of course, Hans Blix went to Iraq and the most intrusive inspections an unoccupied nation was ever subjected to failed to uncover any evidence of still-existing WMD even in the tiny quantities you might have thought they could have retained for possible terrorist uses.
So, I really don't know what to think of Valerie Plame's "She and her colleagues, she wrote, believed that Saddam Hussein was hiding chemical and biological weapons, which she feared would be used against U.S. troops."
Did I go to a demonstration? I'm reluctant to answer, but FYI I organized many demos, teach-ins and debates, wrote letters, opeds and so on. I did about as much as I could to try to stop this war, and it cost me about as much as Valerie Plame lost for her husband's defiance of Bush - which as we know came long after the fact instead of at the time when it might have made a difference.
UN-common-dreams--there is no denying the sleazy aspects of spying, but some of it is still necessary. I believe valerie felt good about her job, working to stop WMD proliferation. True, her own government was working even harder to spread weapons to all buyers (the key word here being "buyers"). But the flea-ridden dogs trotted over from the White House and laid down next to her.
"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars"--Oscar Wilde
The excuses the administration used to start this war were bull shit, and stunk from the very begining, and I am sure that a great many more pepole knew that for a fact and either looked the other way or were themselves involved in a mull
titude of coverups.
The American public themselves allso are complissit in this or complacent, as what has been taking place since 9/11 is just to outrageous to just blame on a few at the top of the dungheap.
The public should of been screaming for proof and truth after Bush's 1st. election, but instead opted to be led by the nose into the quagmire they now find themselves.
Obviouslly nothing was learned from VietNam, either that or as a nation you just dont give a shit who gets blown up as long as it isnt you.
And you sure as shit didnt have to be working in Intelligence to know bullshit when it was dropped, the stench has circled the globe.
Being exposed as a spy by the administration she worked for is just a small fart in this smell, but I'm sure book sales will cover any lingering odor she has clinging to her.
Thank you to the Wilsons for speaking up. Some forget what it cost both of you.
I agree that it was pretty easy to see that the Bush administration was lying about the evidence used to invade Iraq. The mushroom cloud bit by Condoleeza Rice was especially deceitfull. What is more to the point is the actual reasons for the invasion and occupation since we all know it was not the existance of WMD. "Fair Game"?
We've come to a sorry state indeed when ex-CIA stand out as moral luminaries.
Here in the Imperial Homeland of the Fuhree and the Buhrave, we were raised to think of CIA agents like the anti-Nazi spies, or like Aragorn & the Rangers -- hidden folk taking immeasurable risks selflessly for the sole purpose of keeping us unaware of the dangers we were really facing. A fantasy nourished by the fact that we white kiddies of the Silent Majoritarians were never in the CIA's crosshairs. Valerie Plame is part of my generation -- we were a bit too young to go through the re-education of the '60s & the Revision Machine was on full force by the time we reached critical age. And the Cold War propaganda was ceaseless & really effective, especially on kiddies immersed in tv since birth.
Joe Wilson tried to do the decent thing; had Cheney not decided to deal with his wife in such a manner, and she were still working her old assignment, would she be helping gin up the propaganda against Iran, or opposed to it?
The case of Valerie Plame Wilson and her "blown cover" remind us that there is quite a mix of people working for the US Government -- people who retain honor and want to do the right thing, and those who have gone over to "the dark side."
This seems to be true of elected officials, bureaucrats, military personnel and intelligence officers.
Plame Wilson, being the attractive and apparently dedicated and honorable intelligence professional we see, allows many of us to relate to a "spook" in ways we might not have thought about before.
She has allowed us to put ourselves in the shoes of an intel officer ... which might be helpful. After all, in some ways, we are all "intelligence agents" of a sort, and agents of intelligence.
Thoughts on this in the article ...
"Gathering intelligence: Grassroots intel by and for the people"
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=19777
Actually alot of CIA officers/ ex-CIA officers have been speaking up about this administration and this administration went after the CIA at one point.
Bill Christison and Kathleen Christison-ex CIA write often about the Middle East and Palestine
Ray McGovern-speaks out often
Valerie Plame
Then there are officials like Scott Ritter who should be included as another brave patriot.
I'm sure you know WMD, yellowcake, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, and Agent Valerie Plame Wilson are just pieces of the puzzle; please, tell us now, so we don't have to wait for some after-the-fact explanation, what the big picture is and how you plan to turn events in our favor, how you plan to save America and the world.
Throw modesty to the wind.
The world will judge you now for your candidness and courage. Stand up now, like Joseph Wilson did; show us your mettle! Stand up now, like Valerie Plame Wilson did; show us what you're made of!
Don't make us wait for the posthumous medals and eulogies or the interviews and book tours. Tell us now; take your place in history!
There's a lot more to the story than this Wa Po article lets on. 60 Minutes is running an interview with Plame tonight. See a preview: http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/60minutes/main3415.shtm
And there is this article by Larisa Alexandrovna:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2096028#top
CBS confirms 2006 Raw Story scoop:
Plame's job was to keep nukes from Iran
CBS News has confirmed, in advance of a 60 Minutes interview with outed CIA agent Valerie Plame to be run this Sunday {10, 19, 2007}, that Plame "was involved in operations to prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons."
"Our mission was to make sure that the bad guys, basically, did not get nuclear weapons," Plame told 60 Minutes. Plame also indicated that her outing in 2003 had caused grave damage to CIA operations, saying, "All the intelligence services in the world were running my name through their databases" to see where she had gone and who she had met with.
RAW STORY first revealed Plame's Iran mission and the damage done to CIA operations by her outing in a February 13, 2006 story by Raw investigative editor Larisa Alexandrovna, titled "Outed CIA officer was working on Iran, intelligence sources say." In that article, Alexandrovna wrote:
According to current and former intelligence officials, Plame Wilson, who worked on the clandestine side of the CIA in the Directorate of Operations as a non-official cover (NOC) officer, was part of an operation tracking distribution and acquisition of weapons of mass destruction technology to and from Iran.
...
That date should have read 10, 21, 2007.
And here's the link to the 60 Mins video preview again:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/17/60minutes/main3378089.shtml
Sorry, this site won't let me edit and gives me strange error messages every time.
Nothing that the Bushco administration said about Iraq was believable, unless you were totally asleep.
Training sometimes does that to you -- as we can see from what other CIA operatives have told us -- and from what we can observe of other professions....medicine, for one.
These are intelligent people who as another poster aptly described as "not being able to see the trees for the forest."
I'm shocked ---
But, finally, I still have to say "thank you" to Valerie Plame for having woken up on the right side of the bed -- and so too for Joe Wilson's courage in speaking out re the administration's other lies.
Most of all-- I'd like to hear if Valerie Plame played a role which might have exposed any attempt by this administration to PLANT WMD in Iraq -- ????
And, whether she had any working relationship with Dr. David Kelly??
Before Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame, there was Nancy Olivieri and David Healy. Cheney did not like Joe's findings and did not wish for them to become public. Cheney treated Joe Wilson the same way drug companies treat researchers who tell uncomfortable truths:
Seems as if you are a scientist getting funding from a drug company and the study shows adverse effects for a certain drug, you are supposed to forget that the study ever happened: When people stuck up for Olivieri for speaking out about what she considered to be serious side effects (liver damage in the case of Deferiprone) Apotex accused any scientist who stuck up for her of sleeping with her (which they weren't). Healy was accused of being a member of the Church of Scientology (which he wasn't).
http://www.umanitoba.ca/centres/ethics/articles/article%2042.htm
CBC
http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/1999/10/05/apotex991005.html
Give me a break. I see some people thanking Plame. For what? Had she and others in governments spoken out against the war then 500,000 Iraqis and 4,000 Americans would not have lost their lives for nothing.
The worse that's going to happen to Plame is a ruined career. She won't lose her life or be maimed, or have a maimed or dead son, daugher, or husband to mourn. She'll still live far more comfortably than most americans who are trying to make ends meet. Oh, I almost forgot - She wrote a book.
We'll always have ruthless, deceptive people manage to get into positions of power; it's up to the rest of us to stop them.
If anyone deserves thanks out of the two it is Joe Wilson.
From what I can gather, Plame figured that another branch of the CIA had information about weapons, it was just that they didn't know where they were. It was only when Bush mentioned the uranium that either Wilson or Plame started questioning whether Iraq had anything at all. They were believers who lost faith. We never believed it to begin with.
Their bravest thing, though, is in not going away.
Soldiers are brave, there is no question about it - they risk their lives and their bodies. However, how many are brave enough to speak out when their superiors are doing something wrong? If you want a career in the military, speaking out can mean career over.