Sunday, October 21, 2007
Outed CIA covert agent Valerie Plame Wilson worked on keeping nuclear weapons from Iran
It’s been reported that tonight’s 60 Minutes will have an interview with former CIA covert agent Valerie Plame Wilson. She will explain that when Bush administration officials leaked her name to members of the press, she was working on keeping nuclear weapons out of the hands of Iran. Something I thought Bush felt strongly about.
This certainly is not good. It doesn’t surprise me though. And to think that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi still cannot stop repeating her promise that impeachment is off the table. I would think this is just the type of thing that would get a president impeached. Granted, it’s not as serious as a sexual act between two consenting adults, but outing a CIA covert agent is a serious offense.
Not only did members of the Bush administration out a CIA covert agent, they stonewalled the subsequent investigation. Bush then commuted the sentence of the only defendant to be prosecuted in connection to this crime.
KATIE COURIC: This Sunday on 60 Minutes, Valerie Plame Wilson gives her first interview since top Bush administration officials exposed her role as an undercover CIA agent four years ago. CBS News has learned she was involved in operations to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon. In the interview, we talked about what it meant to have her identity revealed.
[BEGIN 60 MINUTES CLIP]
COURIC: What went through your mind when you saw your name in print?
PLAME: Oh, it was horrifying, absolutely horrifying.
COURIC: She served 20 years in the CIA, many undercover in the agency’s counterproliferation division, rising to top positions and confronting one of the most ominous threats of our time.
PLAME: Our mission was to make sure that the bad guys, basically, did not get nuclear weapons.
COURIC: When senior administration officials leaked her name to reporters, they may have exposed other spies and damaged operations targeting Iran. CBS News has learned that she was involved in one highly classified mission to deliver fake nuclear weapons blueprints to Tehran. It was called Operation Merlin, and it was first revealed in a book by investigative reporter James Risen.
COURIC: Are you familiar with that?
PLAME: I don’t think I can tell you.
COURIC: He said the idea was to give the Iranians blueprints for the bomb that were seriously flawed to set them back. Does that sound like something the counter-proliferation division would do?
PLAME: I think I can say it sounds like a good idea.
COURIC: Were you surprised to read about Operation Merlin in the press?
PLAME: Indeed.
COURIC: Is that problematic for the CIA?
PLAME: Leaks are always bad news.
COURIC: She should know, revealing for the first time that the leak of her name had serious repercussions.
PLAME: I can tell you all the intelligence services in the world were running my name through their databases to see did anyone by this name come in the country? When? Do we know anything about it? Where did she stay? Who did she see?
COURIC: And what would be the ramifications of that?
PLAME: Well, it was very serious. It puts in danger, if not shuts down, the operations that I had worked on.
COURIC: Valerie Plame Wilson also has some harsh things to say about President Bush. That and much more in our interview this Sunday on 60 Minutes.
Not only was Valerie Plame Wilson’s career with the CIA ruined, but the lives of the people she dealt with were put into extreme peril. Maybe may have died over her being outed. This is why it’s a crime to out the identity of a covert agent.
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