Outed CIA operative blames White House, State officials
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Valerie Plame Wilson, the CIA operative at the heart of a political scandal, told Congress Friday that senior officials at the White House and State Department "carelessly and recklessly" blew her cover to discredit her diplomat-husband.
Plame Wilson, whose 2003 outing triggered a federal investigation, said she always knew her identity could be discovered by foreign governments.
"It was a terrible irony that administration officials were the ones who destroyed my cover," she told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. (Watch Plame Wilson describe how she felt like she'd been "hit in the gut" Video)
"If our government cannot even protect my identity, future foreign agents who might consider working with the Central Intelligence Agency and providing needed intelligence would think twice," Plame Wilson said in response to a question.
The hearing was the first time Plame Wilson has publicly answered questions about the case, which led to the recent perjury and obstruction of justice conviction of Vice President Dick Cheney's former top aide, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
Her appearance was a moment of gripping political theater as Democrats questioned whether the Bush administration mishandled classified information by leaking her identity to reporters. No one has been charged with leaking her identity.
"It's not our job to determine criminal culpability, but it is out job to determine what went wrong and insist on accountability," Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-California, said at the outset of the hearing.
The man who led the criminal investigation, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, was not on the witness list. He told lawmakers Wednesday that federal law prohibited him from offering his thoughts on the case.
Nobody from the White House involved in the leak was scheduled to testify. Neither were officials from the State Department.
Plame Wilson sat alone at a witness table and fielded questions about her CIA career and the disclosure of her name in July 2003 in a syndicated newspaper column. She says she was outed as retaliation against her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who criticized the administration's prewar intelligence on Iraq.
"My name and identity were carelessly and recklessly abused by senior officials in the White House and State Department," Plame Wilson testified. "I could no longer perform the work for which I had been highly trained." (Read how Plame Wilson said she worked on secret missions during her time as an operative)
Plame Wilson said she had no role in sending her husband on a CIA fact-finding trip to Niger. Wilson said in a newspaper column that his trip debunked the administration's pre-war intelligence that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium from Africa.
"I did not recommend him. I did not suggest him. There was no nepotism involved. I did not have the authority," she said.
