Finally Telling My Story

I'm Valerie Plame Wilson and I'm excited to be here and blog about my book Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House, which goes on sale Monday, Oct 22. When my publisher sent me the finished copy earlier this week, it was thrilling. It felt like a new chapter (forgive the pun) has begun on the journey that has taken some incredible twists and turns since July 14, 2003, when my covert identity was exposed and ended a career that I loved. I've written honestly about my life: why I went to work for the CIA, my paramilitary training, the sort of operations we developed and ran to find intelligence on Iraq's alleged WMD programs in the run up to the war, as well as personal information, such as my battle with postpartum depression and the difficulties I had going from a private to a public persona literally overnight. My publisher, Simon and Schuster, decided to print the blacked out redactions demanded by the CIA and hopefully those passages (or lack thereof) speak for themselves and the extent to which the CIA thought the material in the book was classified.

Watching myself on 60 Minutes was surreal -- who can ever get used to seeing themselves on TV? I guess the book tour has really started and it will be a crazy week ahead. After four and a half years and everyone else in world talking about me, it feels good to finally be able to tell my story myself. It's a story about the consequences of speaking truth to power and the critical importance of holding our government to account for its words and deeds. I'm off to bed, because I have an early wakeup call tomorrow to do the Today Show. I look forward to sharing my reactions and stories with you from the road over the next few days. I will be posting throughout the week and appreciate your comments and support.

Comments

[mpgarr]

As I write this--I am listening to another interview with Valerie Plame--this time on NPR-she made a good point----Joe Wilson's trip to Niger was such a junket--that is right--I bet it is such a hot spot to take a pleasure trip to.
Go out on a golf course--if the country even has one--and get shot up or blown up by an IED!!
Yeah--let's take a sightseeing pleasure junket trip to Niger!!!!! Yahooooooo!!!!!

[kevenseven]

Niger is something like the fifth poorest nation on earth.

Very little by way of amusement to be had there.

[brawnwyn]

I lived 2 years in Niger and although the people were kind and welcoming,the country(much of which is Sahara desert)is certainly not a place one would choose to go for a "junket".

[Hansharriet]

I know that there are some honorable CIA agents who risk their lives daily and hourly to serve our country, like Valery Plame Wilson. But under this treacherous Administration the CIA has been politicized and become a tool of this Administration and the neo-con Republicans.
Nixon tried to get the CIA to serve him and his administration. Luckily he was caught before he could succeed.
Where is Congress when it is needed? We have to get Congress to impeach both Bush and Cheney for using our Government agencies and endangering American lives for their own political purposes.
In addition, we should put this President and Vice President before a Court for War Criminals, not the present Supreme Court, for committing our country to a war based on lies and deception. The majoriy of the present Supreme Court has forfeited the trust of the American people by making a political partisan decision in the 2004 election.
Let's call immediately on our Senators and Representatives and DEMAND IMPEACHMENT NOW.

[unfoxworthy]

Valerie,
Get on Hillary's ticket as the VP and just wreak havoc on these useless self-righteous bastards.
I'll vote for ya!

[gems]

Welcome,
Honesty in our government is rare. Thank you for yours.
Gemma

[Chip1222]

So glad you're telling your story. Congratulations.

[jimpryor99]

LOL, MSNBC says you were "so undercover" that you weren't allowed to tell neighbors where you worked. Umm...you'd think you would have corrected them and told them that NO CIA employee is allowed to tell their neighbors where they work.

[kevenseven]

"NO CIA employee is allowed to tell their neighbors where they work".

Who told you that?

[kevenseven]

It's a lie, but you knew that.

[MadMoll]

Mrs. Wilson,

Thank you for your Service to the Nation, and Damned be those who, for their own petty politics turned traitor by exposing you and your work thereby giving aid and comfort.
God Bless you and your Family and may He Keep you. America needs more True Heroes such as yourself.

[bushmocker]

I thank you for your service to the country,especially now when CIA sounds more like the KGB.I know you and your husband must have had some fears when you started speaking truth to power,thanks to your courage and persistence maybe more people will engage the government in these most corrupt times.

[GrendelKhan1]

What happens, exactly, in countries like Iran, or Saddam's Iraq, to people who had contact with Plame? Or even people who had contact with people who had contact with Plame?

I wonder how many of Plame's contacts were killed or worse because of her being outed by this administration.

I wonder how many other contacts have decided to stop communicating for fear of exposure.

I wonder how many future potential contacts have been lost. If I lived in another country, I'd have to think twice before talking to the CIA about anything...

What happened to Plame was treason. Those responsible should be impeached - yes it goes that high.

Thank you, Valerie, for everything. You are that rarest breed of American, one that I am proud of. Good luck to you and yours.

-Gren

[farleft]

Ms. Plame,

I’m sorry this happened to you. Our nation is in your debt, obviously you loved your job and were good at it, we have all lost.

Thank you for your service.

Steve

For everyone else –

Some may ask why this case is so important, I’ll tell you.

I’m retired military and I place bravery into categories:

Level Three – people like me who volunteered to place their nation above their own safety.

Level Two – Covert Military, Police and Fire Response.

Level One – Covert CIA Operatives. Imagine living where no one, not your friends or family knows what you really do. If your identity is even whispered you will be apprehended, tortured or killed. If discovered your own nation will not claim you.

Usually when the military moves they have support – the covert operative has none.

Those stars on the wall at CIA headquarters represent a level of commitment I can barely comprehend.

The armchair warriors of team Cheney (five deferments) committed TREASON when they intentionally revealed Ms. Plame’s identity. Yes, I’ll call it treason.

Let’s be sure – there are no detainees, there are only prisoners, calling them detainees doesn’t make torture OK in the eyes of international law.

Revealing a covert agent’s identity is not a leak, a leak is what happens with committee notes. Outing is what happens when we all find out someone is gay. Disclosing classified information is criminal, disclosing a covert operative’s identity is treason.

Everyone talks about impeaching Cheney for lying about the Iraq war – I would say that his defense, of course, is that he was pursuing national defense.

This incident is much different, this qualifies as “High Crimes and Misdemeanors”. I can’t find another single case of a government revealing an operative’s identity all the way back to the civil war.

When John Walker spied for the Soviets, they called it espionage and changed the law to allow for execution.

Surely we can show Cheney the door. I think we’re entitled a higher level of government. Please write your representative.

[TellitLikeItIs]

farleft: You state the facts! Treason in respect to Valerie Plame Wilson. Systematic violation of the Hague Conventions (1907), the Geneva Conventions (torture/extraordinary rendition/illegal wiretaps, etc.), war crimes (occupation of a sovereign foreign power), contravention of U.S. law, and the list goes on & on.

But where is our Congress and Senate, our "Representatives" on these issues? Complicit, except for a few lone voices (Feingold, Kucinich, Conyers, etc). And when will the sheeple rise up and take the power back that the Declaration of Independence grants to us?

The Declaration of Independence (July 4, 1776):
".....That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of theses ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principle and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." "...But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariabley the same Object envinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

[ASurvivorInUtah]

I am so sorry that you were betrayed by our government Valerie and I hope and pray that you and your husband are successful in your efforts to hold George W Bush and everyone else in his administration responsible for ending your career as well as any collateral damage. Someday you will be able to tell us all the rest of the story but in the meantime I am still shaking my head about what a tool Katie Couric is in spouting off about how you should have known you were going to be compromised because your husband spoke out! Wrong! I will continue to pray that our country will be able to recover from all the damage that has been wrought by the current imperial presidency.

[imtex2]

Good for you Valerie. Now that we have a better view of the Bush administration, do you think it possible the 9/11 attack was not only known about in advance, but actually permitted to happen.

[Passenger57]

Some intelligence agents have come forward(Colleen Rowley,Robert Wright) and told us how their "superiors' seemed to not want investigations of the hijackers to go forward.Translator Sibel Edmonds is under a gag order;she can't tell what she found out in the backlog of intercepted communications.
The Bush administration wanted no investigation of 9/11at all,and when the Congressional one strated,they were overtly directed to look at other aspects of the disaster.
When the 9/11 Whitewash Commission started up, they tried to get Henry Kissinger to be the Chairman,and when that failed,they resorted to non-cooperation-culminatiing in Bush and Cheney going before the Commission together,not under oath,and with no record whatsoever of what they said.
If all this (and much,much more) doesn't indicate a cover-up of their complicity...what does?

[JohnWantsPeace]

I don't watch network television, but I'm glad to hear that you are telling the world what it needs to know. Hang in there, you have my support.

[HOORGANVISOR]

I'm sure Plame felt bad when she was exposed by a former CIA agent who was outing other agents in Europe. And then when her husband Joe bragged in material at a conference he attended before 2003 that his wife worked for the CIA, she probably felt angry with him. By 2003, she had been in the United States long enough to not be considered covert. So it was no big deal to reveal that she worked at the CIA; especially since her neighbors already knew. I just hope she tells the truth in her book and in interviews about getting her husband to go to Niger to find out about the uranium that Saddam had bought and had delivered to Iraq. With her husband being such a blabbermouth, she took a chance having him go to Africa since he could have told more people about his wife being in the CIA than the hundreds of people who already knew.

[TLV]

Being in the CIA wasn't at issue. The fact that she worked in a division that provided her no cover as she concentrated her efforts to stop weapons sales to possible rogue nations was. She also was working on tracking materials sales to Iran.

If Iran does get weapons grade materials, will the Bushies then blame the Democrats or will they rightfully blame the Bush administration which tried hard to hamper the efforts of Valerie Plame and the CIA?

[kevenseven]

Name one of her neighbors who has stated for the record that they knew of Plame's employment before Novak's column. There is none, you are a liar.

Provide a link please, that indicates that Plame's association to CIA was compromised before 2001. And not from Freeper or NewsMax, please, actual news sources.

Show us one person who has stated that Wilson told him or her of Plame's association with CIA at this conference you reference.

What uranium are your refering to? There was no deal between Iraq and Niger, and no sale.

The White House admitted that the 16 words were a lie two days after Wilson's OpEd. So what deal is this that you insist took place? Are we talking about a sale in 1985 or something?

Please name one person who should not have known Plame's affiliation but did, before the SOTU in 2003. You write that hundreds of people knew. Name one.

Got any more lies you cannot support honestly?

[rfshunt]

Kevenseven,

Attaboy! Call them out on their lies, insist that they back-up the unfounded claims they make. Not only does it stop them dead in their tracks, it exposes their tactics for all to see.

Hey Hoorganvisor - you've been called a liar. I agree with that judgment of you. Can you back up ANY of your statements?

[JDBishop5]

Good luck! The President's mob will REALLY come out now.

Hang on.

[Moondawn]

go for it all the way Valerie and you do have the right to speak was has happen to you and
every one this called freedom of speech and about human rights, and Bush and cheney should be impeach from office and Cheney is the one is braking, the law Valerie fight what you believe in and don't give up