March 17, 2007
I was betrayed by the White House, says CIA blonde spy
Times Online
Tim Reid in Washington
When the blonde-bombshell spy at the heart of the CIA leak scandal entered the room to break her silence yesterday the usually turgid House Oversight and Government Reform Committee began the strangest morning in its 191-year history.
Like a cross between Mata Hari and Greta Garbo, Valerie Plame — whose outing as a CIA official in 2003 led to a perjury conviction for Vice-President Cheney’s former chief of staff — emerged from the shadows to tell her story. For an hour at least the committee was the hottest show in town.
Flashbulbs exploded, cable news channels went live and young, mostly male, congressional aides packed the chamber. Ms Plame said that she felt she had been “hit in the gut” when she saw the newspaper column that revealed she worked for the CIA.
Before she spoke, Henry Waxman, the committee chairman, read out a statement cleared by General Michael Hayden, the CIA Director. It confirmed for the first time that before her name was leaked to the press, Ms Plame was an undercover agent who frequently took on dangerous foreign missions.
“One of the nation’s most carefully guarded secrets — the identity of a covert CIA agent — was repeatedly revealed by White House officials to members of the media,” said Mr Waxman, a Democrat whose tireless investigations of Bush Administration wrongdoing borders on zealotry. “How did such a serious violation of our national security occur?” Ms Plame, who has signed a seven-figure deal for a memoir, Fair Game, had the answer. The White House “carelessly and recklessly” blew her cover, she said, for the political purpose of discrediting her husband, Jospeh Wilson, a prominent critic of the Iraq war.
“I travelled to foreign countries on secret missions to find vital intelligence. I loved my career because I love my country,” Ms Plame said.
“But all my training, all of the value of my years of service were abruptly ended when my name and identity were exposed.” Foreign enemies tried to expose CIA spies, but it was a “terrible irony that administration officials were the ones who destroyed my career”, she said.
The committee subjected Ms Plame to hard-hitting questions such as that from John Yarmouth: “Did the leak make you feel that your entire career had been thrown out of the window?”
Ms Plame agreed that it had. After her name appeared in the press, a special prosecutor investigated. He has never charged anybody with the crime of knowingly blowing a spy’s cover, but he successfully prosecuted Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Mr Cheney’s former top aide, with lying about his role in the affair.
No evidence has emerged that White House officials who told reporters about Ms Plame’s CIA job knew she was a covert operative. But that was irrelevant yesterday. This was her moment.
She told the hearing: “The harm that is done when a CIA cover is blown is grave; lives are literally at stake.”
Who’s who in the tangled web
Joseph Wilson Valerie Plame’s huband. He wrote a confidential report for the CIA, casting doubt on claims that Saddam Hussein was trying to buy uranium from Niger and later went public with his concerns. The claims had been used by President Bush to bolster case for war.
Dick Cheney the vice-President. He took violent exception to Mr Wilson’s going public, in particular the claim that he, Mr Cheney, had been behind Mr Wilson’s mission.
Lewis “Scooter” Libby Mr Cheney’s senior aide. He tried to discredit Mr Wilson by suggesting to journalists that his wife, a CIA agent, had sent him to Niger as a junket. He was convicted of perjury
