Former CIA Agent Valerie Plame WIlson Speaks At UGA

Valerie Plame Wilson speaks to guests after the discussion.

Photo Credit: Todd Hatcher

by Todd Hatcher
04/17/2008

Valerie Plame Wilson, the outed CIA operative whose leaked identification ignited a scandal that resulted in the imprisonment of Vice President Dick Cheney’s Chief of Staff, claims that the Bush administration sought to deliberately leak her name to the press as an act of revenge, she claimed in a discussion at the University of Georgia Wednesday.

“This administration has been extremely vindictive,” she said.

Plame Wilson, who was an operations officer within the CIA, spoke about her life in the Agency and the events surrounding her subsequent exposure, as detailed in her recent book, Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House. The event was held at the UGA chapel, which was seated to capacity.

She purports that “What I Didn’t Find in Africa,” an article by her husband, former ambassador Joe Wilson, sparked a vengeful effort within the president’s administration against the couple as a result of material in the piece that questioned the motives behind the invasion of Iraq.

Plame Wilson recalled her previous shock at hearing then Secretary of State Colin Powell’s address to the United Nations on the subject of invading Iraq in the months before, even though she believes that there was a warrant for the suspicion of weapons of mass destruction in the country at the time. She claimed the material Powell was presenting was based on information which was known to be unreliable.

“What the General was saying did not match up to the intelligence to which I was privy - and believe me, I was privy to a lot,” she said. “It was inconceivable that the government would manipulate info to this extent,” she later declared.

Shortly after the Iraq campaign began, Plame Wilson asserted that her husband wrote the article in response to a tip that he might be named as a source of the thin intelligence on which the war was being justified. A mere week later, commentator and journalist Robert Novak compromised her identity as an undercover agent in his column.

Thus began what Plame Wilson referred to as “a four-and-a-half year character assassination” in which she claims she and her husband were victims of outlandish accusations and false portrayals.

"I was accused of nepotism. My husband would be called a liar, a traitor," she said.

Plame Wilson also discussed difficulties surrounding the publishing of her book. The main motivation for telling her story, she said, stemmed from a responsibility to hold the government accountable for what she sees as unlawful, deceptive actions.

Toward the end of the event, Plame Wilson recalled a comment made during her crisis, which said that in effect, her situation was simply "politics as usual" in the White House. “I disagree,” Plame said. “I think this was treasonous.”