Published in the Roswell Daily Record July 20, 2006
Plame, Wilson vs. GOP Leaders
Ellen Wedum, Guest Columnist
Former CIA officer Valerie Plame and her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, filed a lawsuit against vice-president Cheney, Scooter Libby and Karl Rove on July 13, three years after her identity as a CIA officer was revealed by columnist Robert Novak. Novak has since disclosed that two of his three sources were Libby and Rove. Here is some information I collected on the plaintiffs—compare this to the careers of the defendants.
Valerie Plame was born April 19, 1963 in a military hospital in Anchorage, Alaska. Her dad was an Air Force Lieutenant Colonel and her mom was an elementary school teacher. She attended Penn State and graduated in 1985. Shortly after that she was recruited by the CIA, who taught her, among other things, how to blow up cars and operate an AK-47.
From then on her career is a mystery. As it should be! Since her cover was blown in 2003, some hints have come to light. One former CIA official, Larry C. Johnson, indicated Plame had been a "nonofficial cover operative" (NOC). He explained: "...that meant she agreed to operate overseas without the protection of a diplomatic passport. If caught in that status she would have been executed."
The man she later married, Joseph C. Wilson IV, was born November 6, 1949. His parents were freelance journalists who lived in California and then moved around Europe while he and his brother were growing up. He graduated from UC Santa Barbara in 1972 and entered the diplomatic corps in1976.
He was assigned to Baghdad in 1988 as deputy chief of mission. At the time of the invasion of Kuwait, in August of 1990, the ambassador, April Glaspie, was out of the country, leaving him in charge. As she was unable to return to Iraq, he became acting ambassador in this hostile situation. On August 6, 1990, he talked to Saddam Hussein. He was the last American diplomat to do so.
Wilson ’s chief concern was to protect Americans stranded in Iraq and Kuwait. After he received a diplomatic note that threatened execution to anyone harboring foreigners, he gave a press briefing wearing a noose around his neck. "If the choice is to allow American citizens to be taken hostage or to be executed, I will bring my own f*cking rope," he said. His personal courage in standing up to Hussein and protecting American lives was rewarded by President G.H.W. Bush with a hand-written note of thanks and an assignment as ambassador to Gabon.
Valerie Plame volunteered to serve her country at great personal risk. Joseph Wilson, when thrust into a dangerous situation, served his country at great personal risk. The key members of the Bush administration have no such credentials.
During the Vietnam War President G.W. Bush joined the Texas Air National Guard and VP Cheney got himself a “daddy deferment.” Karl Rove and Scooter Libby never volunteered and never served under fire.
The romance between Plame and Wilson began at a Washington party in 1997. It wasn’t until they had been dating for a while that she revealed her CIA identity to him, and then only because he had a top-secret clearance. They were married on April 3, 1998 (her second marriage, his third). Wilson retired from government service and started a consulting business. The couple became the parents of twins in 2000.
Because of Wilson’s many years of experience in the diplomatic corps in Africa, he was occasionally consulted by the CIA on African affairs. There was nothing unusual in their request that he go to Niger in February 2002 to investigate, and as it turned out, debunk, claims that Hussein was trying to buy uranium. Right-wingers have tried to make it sound as if Wilson went because he needed the money, but in fact he did not charge for his services although he was reimbursed for his expenses (just like the members of our New Mexico citizen legislature).
His report, the report of the Niger ambassador, and it would appear all reports and information that did not support the Bush administration’s war plans, was ignored and the United States invaded Iraq. Up until the day (July 6, 2003) that Wilson’s commentary, “What I Didn’t find in Africa,” appeared in the New York Times, no one in the Bush administration would admit that false information had been used to sell the war to Congress, the UN and the American people. [2008: Note that an independent research group has documented 935 lies told by members of the Bush administration to promote the invasion of Iraq.]
The response of the Bush administration to Wilson was to try to discredit both him and his wife, by insinuating that she used her CIA position to get him the assignment. The idea that Valerie Plame might actually work for the CIA as a covert agent rather than as a “paper pusher,” as Ann Coulter has claimed, may not have occurred to Cheney et al. Of course, they did have that “S” for SECRET in the margins of the memos they looked at that included her name... but members of the Bush team seem prone to ignoring evidence that doesn’t fit with their preconceived ideas.
Robert Novak was the first reporter to blow Plame’s cover. There is some irony in Novak’s efforts to check his story-- he did contact then-CIA spokesman Bill Harlow, who told him he should not print the covert officer's name, Valerie Plame. But Harlow could not tell Novak that Plame was a COVERT officer because that information itself was classified! Novak refused to take the hint, and wrote “... but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger ...” These administration officials, who have never volunteered, never risked themselves for America, attacked Plame and Wilson to protect themselves, not to serve and protect our country. We need elected officials who can meet higher standards.
references:
What I Didn't Find in Africa
Published on Sunday, July 6, 2003 by the New York Times
MISSION TO NIGER
Robert Novak Published Monday July 14, 2003 by the Chicago Sun-Times
Military Service records of politicians:
http://www.electoral-vote.com/2004/info/military-service.html
Wilson Info from Vanity Fair:
http://www.jimgilliam.com/2004/01/vanity_fairs_profile_on_joseph_wilson_and_valerie_plame.php
http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/anncoulter/2005/07/13/154904.html