Plame Is Set to Leave the CIA Options

[no retreat, no s...]

THE NATION
Plame Is Set to Leave the CIA

The operative whose covert identity was revealed in a 2003 column wants to spend more time with her family, friends say.

By Richard B. Schmitt
Times Staff Writer

December 6, 2005

WASHINGTON — Valerie Plame, the diplomat's wife whose secret resume was exposed in a newspaper column that eventually led to the indictment of Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, is leaving the CIA on Friday, people familiar with her plans said.

Plame, 42, worked undercover for the CIA tracking weapons proliferation but saw her clandestine career imperiled after she was identified as an agency operative in the summer of 2003 in a syndicated column by Robert Novak.

Friends said the mother of 5-year-old twins wanted to spend more time with her family, and that although she agreed to be photographed last year with her husband for an article about the case in Vanity Fair magazine, she had no plans to speak out.

There has also been speculation that she would file a civil lawsuit against the Bush administration contending that it leaked her identity and damaged her career.

"She did not have a career left," said Larry C. Johnson, a former CIA officer and a friend of Plame since the two were in the same agency training class in the 1980s. "She was no longer able to work as a clandestine officer, which was her reason for being."

Johnson said that although Plame still had allies at the agency, her ability to function effectively was irreparably harmed after her status became publicly known.

"She is either a non-entity or radioactive," Johnson said. "Getting connected with her is not something that is going to enhance your career. She has been something of a leper."

Plame has been with the CIA for 20 years; the decision to leave makes her eligible to collect retirement benefits in the future, Johnson said. Her effective retirement date will be in January, but her last day at work will be Friday.

Plame is married to Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former ambassador, who was sent by the CIA to Africa in February 2002 to evaluate claims that Saddam Hussein was trying to buy weapons-grade uranium in Niger. Wilson found the claims unverifiable and publicly criticized the intelligence used by the administration to justify the war against Iraq.

Administration officials began a campaign to discredit Wilson and identified Plame in conversations with several journalists, potentially violating a law against unmasking undercover agents. A federal grand jury recently indicted former Cheney aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby on charges that he repeatedly lied to investigators.

A Justice Department special prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, is continuing to investigate, and among his potential targets are White House political advisor Karl Rove, who has acknowledged being a source for the July 14, 2003, Novak column that named Plame.

Fitzgerald has indicated that he plans to present evidence to a new grand jury soon. He is to interview Time magazine correspondent Viveca Novak this week about a conversation she had last year with Robert D. Luskin, Rove's lawyer. Time's Novak is not related to the columnist.

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/a...758,print.story

[D103486]

She should sue Bob Novak, Rove, Libby, Cheney and anyone else revealed through testimony to be involved in ruining her CIA career. A nice big fat settlement should make her retirement a little easier.

[rox63]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10401018

Valerie Plame spends last day at CIA
Two sources say undercover agent whose identity was revealed is leaving

The Associated Press
Updated: 5:19 p.m. ET Dec. 9, 2005

WASHINGTON - Valerie Plame, the CIA officer whose exposure led to a criminal investigation of the Bush White House, spent her last day at the spy agency Friday.

Neither the agency nor Plame’s husband would confirm her departure, but two people who have known Plame for a number of years confirmed she was leaving.

Married to Bush administration critic and former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, Plame was working at agency headquarters in Langley, Va., in 2003 when her CIA status was disclosed by conservative columnist Robert Novak. That triggered a probe that led to the recent indictment of Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby.

Plame had served for many years at overseas postings for the CIA, and her employment remained classified when she took a headquarters desk job, traveling overseas periodically.

She was an employee in the CIA’s Counterproliferation Division.

“Her career was arbitrarily and whimsically destroyed by a mean political trick,” said Vincent Cannistraro, a former chief of operations for the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center.

Plame’s CIA connection was disclosed eight days after her husband accused the Bush administration of twisting prewar intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.

In the preface to the paperback edition of his book, “The Politics of Truth,” Wilson says that he and his wife were the focus of a “Republican smear machine.”

Deputy White House chief of staff Karl Rove, President Bush’s top political adviser, remains under investigation in the Plame probe. Libby, who resigned from the government the day of his indictment, has pleaded not guilty to five counts of perjury, obstruction of justice and lying to the FBI.

[winston smith]

Her last day was today...