Valerie Plame and the Attack of the Paparazzi

[babylonsister]

http://www.motherjones.com/news/update/2007/03/plame_speaks.html

Valerie Plame and the Attack of the Paparazzi

News: Former covert operative speaks for the first time—and the D.C. press goes wild.

By Leigh Ferrara

March 16, 2007


It was supposed to be a hearing on "White House Procedures for Safeguarding Classified Information," read: White House involvement in the outing of former CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson. But what unfolded today before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform was nothing more than a media frenzy. As Republican Representative Lynn Westmoreland's noted, "I was here during the steroids hearing with all those baseball players and even they didn't get this much media attention." Representatives literally couldn't hear Wilson take her oath for all the camera shutters clicking.

But you can't blame the media, can you? Today's hearing was the first time Wilson has testified publicly about her outing; reporters have been starving for any tidbit from her as the celebrity buzz around her—book manuscript under review by the CIA; Warner Bros. working on a film; lawsuit against the Bush administration set for oral arguments in May—has been building. Not to mention that Wilson is a blond bombshell in the Capitol's sea of bald heads and drab blue suits.

Despite the ruckus—cameramen and women climbing on tables, crowd noise leaking through the doors that constantly opened as photographers filed in and out to get their fix—Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) was determined to get down to business. "It's not our job to determine criminal culpability," he said, "but it is our job to understand what went wrong and to insist on accountability and to make recommendations for the future—to avoid future abuses." (The abuse, of course, was the leaking of Wilson's CIA identity, a move generally believed to have been payback for her husband, Ambassador Joe Wilson, who exposed the Bush administration's false claims about Iraq seeking yellowcake uranium from Niger; Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, Scooter Libby, was convicted in the leak case in January.)

Waxman wanted three questions answered. How had this happened, did the White House take the right steps to investigate the leak, and what changes needed to be made to prevent future breaches of conduct? And he wanted to hear from Wilson.

She did not disappoint. "My name and identity were carelessly and recklessly abused by senior officials in the White House and State Department," she testified. "I could no longer perform the work for which I had been highly trained." She testified that she "was involved in secret worldwide operations and traveled to foreign countries." She said she was part of the CIA's "counter-proliferation unit," and that "It was not common knowledge on the Georgetown cocktail circuit who I was."

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[smomfr]

1. Looks like we have our beautiful blond and she´s not .....

missing or dead. She´s an ¨in your face¨ type of blond.

[smomfr]

2. Looks like we have our beautiful blond and she´s not .....

missing or dead. She´s an ¨in your face¨ type of blond.