Posted by Mark Silva at 11:15 am CDT
One of the urban myths surrounding the outing of Valerie Plame, the once-covert CIA agent, with the Bush administration’s leak of her identity after her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson. criticized the administration for manipulating pre-war intelligence, is that no harm was done in exposing her.
That’s not the way that Plame told the story today, appearing on Capitol Hill for congressional testimony. She recalled reeling at the site of the newspaper column that first identified her in the summer of 2003 when her husband brought her the paper, and, when asked what impact that exposure had on her career, Plame said it was simple: She was no longer able to perform the work for which she had been trained.
“All of my efforts on behalf of the national security of the United States, all of my training… were abruptly ended when my name and identity were exposed irresponsibly,” Valerie Plame Wilson said today. “‘My name and identity were carelessly abused by senior government officials, in both the White House and the State Department… They should have been diligent both in protecting me and every CIA officer.”
See for yourself:
And this clip too:
