"Neo-conservatives
and religious conservatives have hijacked this
administration, and I consider myself on a personal
mission to destroy both," said Ambassador Joseph Wilson.
Washington - The
identity of an undercover CIA officer whose husband
started the Iraq uranium intelligence controversy has
been publicly revealed by a conservative Washington
columnist citing "two senior administration
officials."
Intelligence officials confirmed to Newsday yesterday
that Valerie Plame, wife of retired Ambassador Joseph
Wilson, works at the agency on weapons of mass
destruction issues in an undercover capacity - at least
she was undercover until last week when she was named by
columnist Robert Novak.
Novak, in an interview, said his sources had come to him
with the information. "I didn't dig it out, it was
given to me," he said. "They thought it was
significant, they gave me the name and I used it."
A senior intelligence official confirmed that Plame was
a Directorate of Operations undercover officer who
worked "alongside" the operations officers who
asked her husband to travel to Niger.
Wilson, 53, is also now
known as the man the CIA sent to Niger in February 2002
to investigate rumors that Hussein was trying to buy
uranium there -- and who came back with denials from
Niger officials. As President Bush repeated the
allegation -- most prominently in the so-called 16 words
in the State of the Union address Jan. 28 -- Wilson
said, he grew increasingly perplexed. And by July, he
was annoyed enough to say publicly that U.S. officials
had exaggerated the public case for invading Iraq.
At the time, he said he feared that the White House
would retaliate. It allegedly did when administration
officials called reporters to identify Wilson's wife as
a clandestine CIA operative.
As the world now knows, Wilson is married to Valerie
Wilson, nee Plame. She is his third wife. She is 40,
slim, blonde and the mother of their 3-year-old twins.
In the photos in his office, she has the looks of a film
star.
"She is really quite amazing," Wilson said.
"We were just discussing today who would play her
in the movie," he cracked.
Wilson himself seems to have a theatrical streak. He is
the son of journalists and calls himself a "former
hippie, surf bum and ski bum." He is far more
obliging of the spotlight than most diplomats, active or
retired, and more flamboyant, wearing his graying mane
on the shaggy side, slinging his feet onto his desk
while taking calls -- more than 50 before noon -- from
the media.
His fingers threaded a string of ornate black worry
beads, common in the Arab world. They're from his days
in Baghdad, where he was acting U.S. ambassador. In
1990, while sheltering more than a hundred Americans at
the U.S. Embassy and diplomatic residences, he briefed
reporters while wearing a hangman's noose instead of a
necktie -- a symbol of defiance after Hussein threatened
to execute anyone who didn't turn over foreigners.
The message, Wilson said: "If you want to execute
me, I'll bring my own [expletive] rope."
This toughness impressed President George H.W. Bush, who
called Wilson a "truly inspiring" diplomat who
exhibited "courageous leadership" by facing
down Hussein and helping to gain freedom for the
Americans before the 1991 war began.
But last summer, in the run-up to the Iraq war, he
became a persistent critic of the current President
Bush's policies, appearing on TV and writing opinion
pieces that argued against a rush to war. "I felt
it was important to correct the record," he said.
Most recently, he has accused the White House -- loudly
-- of blowing his wife's CIA cover in retaliation.
Wilson makes no secret of being a left-leaning Democrat
and said yesterday he intends to endorse Sen. John F.
Kerry (D-Mass.) for president. Wilson, a former
ambassador to Gabon who served as an Africa expert in
the second Clinton administration, has long been
friendly with leading Democrats.
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