One meme going around on the right is that Valerie Plame Wilson wasn't a covert agent, that she was a paper shuffler, that revealing her identity wasn't a big deal. Putting aside for the moment that people in the White House wouldn't spend a lot of time talking to the press about a trivial person who didn't really matter much, Plame's testimony pretty much disproves that whole 'not a spy' idea.Valerie Plame Wilson's congressional testimony, via Raw Story:
My name is Valerie Plame Wilson, and I am honored to have been invited to testify under oath before the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on the critical issue of safeguarding classified information. I'm grateful for this opportunity to set the record straight.
I served the United States loyally and to the best of my ability as a covert operations officer for the Central Intelligence Agency. I worked on behalf of the national security of our country, on behalf of the people of the United States until my name and true affiliation were exposed in the national media on July 14th, 2003, after a leak by administration officials. Today I can tell this committee even more.
In the run-up to the war with Iraq, I worked in the Counterproliferation Division of the CIA, still as a covert officer whose affiliation with the CIA was classified. I raced to discover solid intelligence for senior policy makers on Iraq's presumed weapons of mass destruction program. While I helped to manage and run secret worldwide operations against this WMD target from CIA headquarters in Washington, I also traveled to foreign countries on secret missions to find vital intelligence. I loved my career because I love my country. I was proud of the serious responsibilities entrusted to me as a CIA covert operations officer, and I was dedicated to this work.
RS has Plame's entire testimony.
