Treason is never old news.
That was the message Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame Wilson gave a packed Quick Center on Tuesday night.
Valerie Plame Wilson is best known for her outing as a covert CIA agent in conservative columnist Robert Novak’s July 2003 column. Plame and her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, claim the outing was retaliation by the Bush Administration for Wilson’s July 6, 2003, New York Times op-ed piece “What I Didn’t Find in Africa,” in which he claimed the Bush Administration had been wrong in its claims that Iraq had been seeking yellowcake uranium from Niger.
Find out more about what Plame really did in this Washington Post article
The claim, part of the President’s 2003 State of the Union address, had been an essential aspect of the evidence provided by the Administration for going to war in Iraq.
Plame, who was prohibited from acknowledging her involvement with the CIA before January 2002, said she was hurt and “outraged” by her outing, saying it was a “terrible irony. … As a CIA operative, you anticipate being outed by your enemies, certainly not by your own government,” she said.
However, she spoke of her old career fondly, laughing about her prowess at shooting AK-47’s and the questionnaires she had to answer in order to become an agent, including one psychological question, “Do you like tall women?”
She also recalled her involvement in the Iraq Task Force formed before the onset of the war to examine the threat of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). Plame, who was an expert in non-proliferation, initially believed in the Administration’s declarations of WMDs.
“[I] felt sick to my stomach, thinking my colleagues and I had failed,” said Plame, in reference to not being able to locate evidence of the weapon programs.
It was only after her husband, who spent more than 20 years in Foreign Service, including extensive time in Africa and as an ambassador to Iraq during the Gulf War, discovered that Niger, nor any country in Africa, had not sold yellowcake uranium to Iraq that she realized the claims made in the President’s State of the Union were false.
Wilson, who said he “felt obligated” to correct the record on Niger, then wrote the New York Times column. Days later, the White House acknowledged that the claim should have never made it into the State of the Union.
Three weeks later Plame’s name was revealed in Novak’s column.
In March 2007, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby was found guilty of four charges involved with the crime, including perjury and obstruction of justice. He was later commuted by President Bush.
Wilson and Plame stated that they would not stop fighting the crime of Plame’s outing, which Wilson claimed was treason, because “redressing your grievances is an essential part of American citizenship,” he said. Wilson also stated that his fight for justice would not end with Bush’s departure of the White House, that “it’s a mistake to just let bygones be bygones,” he said.
Despite their problems with the Administration, who Wilson described as “nefarious and profoundly un-democratic” both Wilson and Plame encouraged students to contemplate a career in public service.
“I ask all of you to consider a career in public service. You do it because it something bigger than yourself,” Plame said.
Wilson agreed. “America needs its best and brightest,” he said, adding that he “had a wonderful career in public service.”
The event was the inaugural lecture of the recently-established Students Forum, organized by the First Year Experience program and the Open Visions Forum. The Students Forum aims at welcoming guests who had had a major impact on American life.
Jim Fitzpatrick, Director of Student Affairs, said they spent a long time searching for the right speaker, but that Wilson and Plame just clicked. “As soon as they said yes, I said we have to go with that,” Fitzpatrick said.
FUSA President Hutchinson Williams also lauded the speakers. “The Students Forum is about expanding students minds to very hot topics and get deeper knowledge in different subjects. These two speakers make you question, and they make you think,” he said.
The decision to bring in Plame and Wilson was appreciated, as both community members and students alike found the lecture valuable and informative.
“They were fabulous,” said Pam Norman, a Southport resident. “Unbiased, very truthful, really exciting,” she said.
Elizabeth Thomas ’08 agreed. “I just wish there was more time,” she said. “There was so much more they could have talked about,” she said.
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