Unfortunately though, the Plame affair was far from a fictitious paranoia ridden screenplay; and as history trudges on it will forever be a shadow looming over the legacy of the Bush supervision and the damaging ramifications it placed on the communal perception of the Central intelligence Agency. Published in 2007, Plame's autobiography, Fair Game, provides comprehension into events surrounding her outing as an undercover Cia agent, its impact, and the twenty years of service she devoted to the Cia. This narrate will begin with a brief synopsis of Fair Game, discuss the unfolding of events that led to Plame's outing, and highlight some of the issues within the Central intelligence agency as pointed out by Plame throughout her twenty year career.
Published in October 2007, Fair Game is an list of Valerie Plame's twenty year tenure at the Central intelligence agency and the events that led up to and followed the leak of her name by Washington Post reporter Robert Novak in July 2003. As an laborer of the Cia, before Plame could issue her book, she had to submit all her writings to the Cia Publications narrate Board (Prb), to make sure she was not releasing any classified information. There are vital portions of Fair Game blacked out that the Cia redacted but as the reader finds out later on towards the end of the book, much of that information had already been declassified and was in the communal sphere. Since, much of the blacked out portions of the book were already declassified, there is an afterword by Laura Rozen that fills in the missing pieces of information.
Trickle Up Poverty
When Valerie Plame first joined the agency in 1985, under Cia director William Casey, it 'was in the midst of rapid increase and tantalizing transformation'. Casey, who, 'to this day many in the agency consider the best director the agency has ever had', began the occupation learner program, an elite schedule into which Plame was accepted. The schedule was a specific training schedule that coupled intense schoraly teachings of the Agency's ways, government and political systems, and vigorous bodily training at the "Farm". In the first chapter, Plame begins with her experience at the "Farm", which included paramilitary-style operational training and corps- building. With such exercises as trudging through woods and swamps carrying eighty pound book bags at 4 a.m., jumping out of helicopters, evading possible captors, and simulated situations of being captured and held captive, it is distinct the Cia went to great lengths in training their recruits and sifting out the weaklings. After successfully graduating from the learner program, Plame got her first assignment as a Cia case officer in Athens, Greece in 1989. Having had valid cover while in Greece, she worked by day as a junior political officer at the U.S. Embassy.
It was during the after-hours where Plame carried out her work as a covert operations officer. While in Greece, she was assigned to the internal political developments, and much of her work focused on the Marxist terrorist group 17 November (N17), which had been responsible for over 100 attacks and 23 assassinations, one which included the Athens Cia middle point Chief Richard Welch in 1975. As an operations officer, it was Plame's duty to seek out possible recruits, manufacture connections, mouth relations, and decide whether or not they would be a vital source of information for the Agency. Essentially, she spent her years in Greece recruiting spies that could supply vital inside information on N17. By 1992, Plame returned back to Washington after the N17 had been taken down by local Greek authorities. Between the years of 1992 and 1996, Plame worked as a Nonofficial Covered Officer (Noc) in Brussels. Plame spent only a year as a Noc, because the prior years were devoted to schoraly training to distance herself from the U.S. Government. By 1997, she was called back to headquarters to work in the newly created Couterproliferation agency (Cpd) in the Directorate of Operations (Do). It was also that year, that Plame would meet hereafter husband, old U.S. Ambassador to Gabon, Joseph C. Wilson Iv. By 1998, the combine married and placed in Washington, D.C.
The Cpd that Plame joined in 1998 was 'devoted to obtaining intelligence and thwarting nuclear acquisitions efforts of rogue nations and nonstate actors'. One of the main objectives and greatest successes of the Cpd during this time was the take down of A.Q. Khan in 2003. Khan, a Pakistani, had over the years set up a large nuclear black market network. After giving birth to her twins, Plame took a year off work before returning to the agency full time in April 2001. Upon her return, 'Valerie Wilson was one of two Cia operations officers assigned to work in the Iraq branch of the Cpd'. After the events of September 11th occurred, it was not long before the war drums began moderately beating in the distance. It was also during this time that the trickle of politics began to moderately seep into the agency. Agreeing to Plame, the agency began the investigation into the yellowcake uranium from Niger shortly after an officer came to her office saying that she had just gotten off the phone with a staffer from the office of the Vice President. The officer had spoken with the staffer after they had received an intelligence record passed on from the Italian government.
The record "alleged in 1999 Iraq had sought yellowcake uranium. .. From Niger'. The staffer told the officer that the Vice President wanted more information on the claim. When this officer came to Plame, saying that she had just received a phone call from a staffer working in the Vice President's office she was momentarily perplexed. As Plame noted, 'in my experience, I had never known that to happen. There were precise protocols and procedures for funneling intelligence to policy makers or fielding their questions'. Plame brushed it aside and went to work,' unaware of the unprecedented amount of visits the vice president had made to Headquarters to meet with analysts and look for an available evidence to support the Iraq Wmd claims the supervision was starting to make'. Working with fellow employees on how to best study the Niger claims, Plame and her colleagues worked diligently trying to come up with the best options.
It was during this time that Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, was brought up as man who could help the agency in investigating the Niger claims. Despite later reports, it was not Plame herself who had recommended Joe for the mission but a midlevel reports officer,' who knew of Joe's history and role in the first Gulf War, his uncut experience in Africa, and also that in 1999 the Cia had sent Joe on a sensitive mission to Africa on uranium issues'. At the time, Plame embraced the idea, unaware of the damaging events and controversy that would ensue. Plame and the reports officer met with their boss to discuss the proposition. Embracing the idea, their boss, 'suggested putting together a meeting with Joe and the accepted agency and State officers'. A week later, Wilson met with 'Iraq/Niger experts from Cpd, the Di, and State', and three weeks later in early March of 2002, he began his fact finding mission in Niger. Upon his return nine days later, two 'Cia officers, one of whom was the Reports Officer who had recommend [Wilson]', came to the Wilson's household to debrief Wilson on his trip so they could immediately write up an intelligence report. As the communal now knows, Wilson found no evidence that supported claims that Iraq had sought yellowcake uranium from Niger. Yet despite the refuting claims, the supervision still seemed convinced that Iraq was in rights of Wmd and posed a serious threat to the nation's security.
Furthermore, in his 2003 January State of the Union speech, President Bush stated 'the British government has learned that Sadam Hussein recently sought vital quantities of uranium from Africa'. The war drums continued to beat on, getting louder with the passing months, and by March 2003, the invasion of Iraq had begun. Needless to say, the Wilson's were bewildered. Both Plame and Wilson had and knew of evidence that refuted much of what the Bush supervision had been feeding to the public, especially the claim that Iraq had been seeking uranium from Niger. These sixteen words that showed up in the President's speech would be a major source of contention in the following months. How that claim made its way into a presidential speech to the public, was not only bewildering to the Wilson's but to many others in the Cia. As the war lingered on, and Wmds continuously failed to show up, Wilson was prompted to write an record about his trip to Niger. The July 6 New York Times op-ed, titled "What I Did Not Find in Africa", set in request for retrial the firestorm that would soon come to be the Plame Affair. On July 14, weeks after Wilson's record appeared in the New York Times, The Washington Post ran an record by journalist Robert Novak that claimed, 'Wilson never worked for the Cia, but his wife Valerie Plame, is an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction.' After Plame's identity as a Cia agent was released, the backlash began. Accusations of nepotism against Plame were copiously thrown around. Wilson was accused of biased and sloppy reporting about his trip to Niger. The toll that the controversy had on the combine was tremendous. The affair would drag on for four tumultuous years, ultimately ending in the indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who had leaked Plame's name to Robert Novak.
Fair Game highlights one of the many issues the intelligence community has had to continuously tackle. That issue, politicized intelligence, is one that has been as onerous as it has been persistent; and as revealed throughout Fair Game, how actually politicized intelligence can shape even the direst of policy decisions. Other issue, as pointed out by Plame, which the Cia dealt with during this period, was the deep seated disagreements that existed surrounded by the Cia and other intelligence Agencies. Though genuine disagreements surrounded by the various intelligence agencies are common, in the case of the Iraq War and Wmds, the failure to transport the severity of the disagreements that existed failed to make its way to policy makers. Though Plame cites many of the obstacles the agency faced, she doesn't recommend any remedies to alleviate or fix the cited issues.
Of the many issues the intelligence community has had to continuously tackle, since the inception of the Ic with the 1947 National protection Act, politicized intelligence has long been a thorn in the side of the Ic. Politicized intelligence can occur in various forms, from policy makers telling analysts what outcomes should be in their terminated products, to analysts feeling pressured to give policy makers what they want to hear, and analysts trying to shape outcomes themselves. Though analysts are trained to and take extra precaution to avoid politicization of intelligence, it can sometimes be so subtle that it slips under the radar. In the case of the lead up to the Iraq War, it was clear that politicization had made its way into the Cia. As early as 2002, as later reports would reveal, Vice President Cheney and his senior aide, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, made an unprecedented amount of visits to Cia headquarters.
Speaking with agency analysts that were working on the Iraq Wmd issues, they would often ask questions about Iraq and possible links to Al-Qaeda. Though these complicated visits by the pair weren't publicly known until June 2003, senior intelligence officials were quoted as saying that these visits by Cheney 'had created and environment in which some analysts felt they were being pressured to make their assessments fit with the Bush Administration's policy objectives.. .while visits to Cia Headquarters are not unprecedented, they are unusual'. Additional evidence of the creeping politicization of intelligence continued to occur as the country moved closer to war. The sixteen words previously mentioned about Iraq obtaining uranium in Bush's state of the union speech and how it made its way into his speech befuddled many agency employees. Despite firm warnings to the White House from the Cia and then Dci George Tenet, against citing the Iraq-Niger claims, those infamous sixteen words somehow managed to find its way into the 2003 State of the Union address. Agreeing to Rozen, 'National protection Council Official, Robert Joseph, would go around Tenent to find a Cia agency head, Winpac chief Alan Foley, willing to sign off on the president citing the Niger claim'.
As it became increasingly clear that the nation was headed for war, a sense of polarization within the Cia was also mounting. When Plame joined the agency, there was never mention of political affiliation, but 'with the passage of time, politics began to creep into the environment and one tended to have a general idea of where one's colleagues stood on the Bush administration'. As polarization and politicization began to moderately seep into the Agency, it wasn't until 2004 when the Cia had truly felt the flood of politicization. The 2004 resignations of Director of Central intelligence (Dci) George Tenet and Deputy Director of Operations (Ddo) Jim Pavitt, shocked many agency employees. Though the pair cited a desire to spend more time with their families as the reasoning for leaving, employees knew there was more to it than that. By September, Bush appointed Porter Goss as the new Dci. Goss, from the starting was bitterly resented by many agency employees.
He was criticized for not interacting with senior agency managers, for spending itsybitsy time with the heads of foreign intelligence services (all of whom the Cia relied on for cooperation in counter terrorism and counter proliferation matters); for not being sufficiently engaged in day-to-day activities, and for being unable to expert some of the details of operations.
Furthermore, after a memo Goss emailed to all Cia employees after the 2004 presidential election, fears of the creeping politicization of the agency were fully realized. As Plame notes, the memo read as follows, 'We support the administration, and its policies, in our work as agency employees... We do not identify with, support, or champion opposition to the supervision or its policies. We supply the intelligence as we see it-and let the facts alone speak to the policy maker'. Though it is clear there was a degree of politicization within the agency during this time, politicization has been a long standing issue. Clearly, with the case of the Iraq War, politicization played a major role. In the past, politicization has always played a part within the intelligence community, but because it has tended to come in more subtle forms it is an issue that is often overlooked. Because analysts are trained to detect and avoid politicized intelligence, and the repercussions are severe, the only distinct remedies seem to be to have more oppressive training of analysts and employees of the Ic on politicization. Other possible remedy is in the option of Dci; the negative impact Porter Goss had on the Cia was considerable.
As Plame notes, ' by January 2005, over twenty senior Cia officials had retired or resigned since Goss became Dci...one thousand years of hard-earned operational experience walked.. .when our country's national protection needs were greatest'. In an agency as vital as the Cia, a good leader that unites rather than divides is imperative. Furthermore, the role of the Dci should not be attenuated to serving as a puppet to the President's administration.
Another issue the intelligence community constantly must deal with is the disagreements among the various agencies on intelligence. One difference in particular that erupted Between the agency of power and the Cia was over the purpose of the aluminum tubes ordered by Iraq in 2001. The power Department's stance was that the tubes were used for rocket casings, while one agency examiner believed the tubes were used for centrifuge rotors used to detach isotopes to enrich uranium. Agreeing to Plame, 'the crime and vast failure of the intelligence community-and the Cia in particular- was that these deep disagreements were relegated to footnotes in tiny type at the bottom of the National intelligence evaluation (Nie)'. Furthermore, the "Presidents Summary", a one page memo, warned the President that there were serious doubts about the intended use of the aluminum tubes. Despite the warnings and doubts expressed by the agency, 'that inconvenient fact did not fit well into their war planning'.
Whether or not, the supervision would have heeded the warnings of the Cia had they been clearer and direct about the serious doubts that existed Between the agencies is unclear but it is distinct the agency failed to portray the severity of the difference and uncertainty that surrounded the use of the aluminum tubes. This instance highlights two of the obstacles faced by all the intelligence agencies. difference will approximately always exists surrounded by the agencies, but given the succinct nature of intelligence reports, many of the existing doubts are often relegated to footnotes. policy makers naturally do not have the time to read long detailed intelligence reports, but sometimes distinct issues, such as the decision to go to war, brief reports do not seem sufficient. Although, the newly enacted intelligence Reform and Terrorism stoppage act of 2004, has allowed for broader cooperation surrounded by the agencies, it is relatively early to see if these new implantations will make an impact in rectifying the issue of agency cooperation and their effects on intelligence reports.
As man who was betrayed by, not only her country ,but the agency which she devoted 20 years too, one would expect Fair Game to be a bitter ridden memoir loaded with ample finger pointing. Though, there is actually a sense of hurt and betrayal on Plame's part gift throughout the book, she takes great care in not portraying herself as a victim at the hands of the U.S. Government. Fair Game highlights many issues that the intelligence Community, and in particular the Cia, have had to continuously tackle. Though she identifies these issues, she does not offer any recommendations or revisions to rectify these problems. Overall, Fair Game provides readers with deeper comprehension into the workings of the Cia and a deeper appreciation of an agency that far too often falls under communal scrutiny.
Fair Game
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