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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
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October 24th,
2007 - Spy at the Centre of White House Scandal Tries to Tell All |
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Spy at the Centre of White
House Scandal Tries to Tell All CIA censors hide much in Valerie Plame's book By Craig Offman National Post October 24, 2007 Months after the United
States invaded Iraq in 2003, White House leaders outed a C.I.A. agent after
her former diplomat-husband publicly questioned evidence the country used to
go to war. This illegal revelation, which led to the perjury conviction of
vice-presidential chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, also
made Valerie Plame Wilson the most recognized spy in the world. Anyone following the news
could identify the wholesome-looking blonde by a few glamorous photographs,
but until this week, she had almost never uttered a word about her ordeal The 44-year-old Mrs. Wilson
just released her autobiography, Fair Game: My Life as Spy, My Betrayal by
the White House - and if it weren't for those busy-body censors at the
Central Intelligence Agency who edit in the name of national security, the
memoir could almost be called a tell-all. Around 15% of the book's
text has been redacted, blacked-out sections which the publisher, Simon and
Schuster, has left intact to make a point. "They're seeking to
cover up their own role of how this all played out," said Ms. Wilson in
a phone interview yesterday from a Washington, D.C. hotel room, where she was
booked under an alias. "It deprives the public of the full sweep of the
story." C.I.A. employees sign
contracts that give the agency latitude to either prohibit from manuscripts
from being published or to vet them. One of the book's most
surprising revelations was that Ms. Wilson was part of an elite group charged
with finding evidence that proved that former Iraq leader Saddam Hussein was
in possession of weapons of mass destruction before shifting to a more
managerial role during the lead-up to the war. Her recounting of two
decades with the agency, which begins with some hardcore boot-camp training,
belies the assertions she was a
"little more than a glorified secretary," a phrase used by a
Republican congressman intended to diminish the damage done by the leaks
orchestrated by the White House. Still, much of her history
has been redacted by censors, even though some of it is public domain. Much
of that narrative is recounted in an afterward written by journalist Laura
Rozen, who investigates her history as a covert operative and then a NOC, or
nonofficial covered officer, in Europe. This meant the operative would not be
protected by diplomatic immunity if her undercover activities were
discovered. More famously, Ms. Wilson's
husband, Joseph, was also entrusted by the C.I.A. to snoop. In 2002, the former
ambassador to Gabon during the Clinton administration went to Niger to find
out if Iraq had bought any yellowcake from the African country. The uranium concentrate
would have enabled Iraq to make nuclear weapons, but the mission turned up
nothing. Four months after the
invasion, Mr. Wilson wrote in the New York Times that "some of the
intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons programme was twisted to
exaggerate the Iraqi threat." A week later, Ms. Plame's
identity was revealed and widely disseminated through the writing of
syndicated columnist Robert Novak, turning her into an international woman of
intrigue, a woman on one hand who stuck to the craft of discretion, but still
posed with her husband in a controversial shoot for Vanity Fair. "It's amazing how that
keeps getting brought up," said Ms. Wilson. "It's indicative of the
right-wing's ability to keep dishing this up. This isn't about Valerie and
Joseph Wilson. It's about them. But if this is the worst thing they can throw
at me ...." In the book, Ms. Wilson
explains how her superior admonishes for what she admits was showed poor
judgement, but then she does a little outing of her own, revealing that the
same superior had an affair. "I just wanted to point
out that everyone's judgement isn't always so sharp," she said when
asked about the passage. In some of the book's other
revealing moments, Ms. Wilson writes that there were death threats against
her and her husband, as well as top-ranking officials. "There were also
threats of other sorts to [former presidential aide Karl] Rove, [former
C.I.A. director George] Tenet and former [attorney general John]
Ashcroft," she told the National Post. Ms. Wilson added that her
request for security detail was denied by her bosses, even though she had
small children. She also explains that the
inexorable scrutiny, the domestic tension, and her unwillingness to leave the
agency nearly led to the end of her marriage. After finishing her 20 years
of service which would help enable her to receive pension, she left the
agency in 2006. But her retirement status remains meagre. "When I'm 57,
I'll receive a small pension." Still, Ms. Plame received
around $2 million for the book, and her publisher, Simon and Schuster, is
appealing a previous federal ruling that stated that Ms. Wilson was not
allowed to say how long she worked for the agency, which only officially
recognizes her last four years of service. "This went far beyond any reasonable
degree of censorship. They have acted in a punitive, censorial and arbitrary
way." At one point, publisher
David Rosenthal said, around 35% of the text had been redacted. He added that he still
hasn't seen the judge's rationale for the verdict, which his publishing house
is appealing. "It's all been very Guantanamo," he said. External link: http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=81bccedb-9fa6-405d-940d-1afd7ff1112a |