For me, there were two important and revealing parts to Valerie Plame Wilson’s testimony today. The first occurred at the one hour and seven minute mark of the hearing. I have transcribed it myself. She explains how it came about that Joe Wilson was selected to go on the trip to Niger.
Valerie Plame: In February 2002, a young junior officer that worked for me, came to me very concerned, very upset. She had just received a telephone call on her desk from someone, I don’t know who, in the office of the Vice-President asking about this alleged sale of yellowcake uranium from Niger to Iraq. As she was telling me this, another officer came by and hearing this, he knew that Joe had already had already come on other CIA missions relating to nuclear matters, and he suggested ‘why we don’t send Joe?’…
I have to admit that I was not over..overjoyed with this idea. We had two-year old twins at home and all I could envision was putting them to bed alone. Nevertheless, we went to my branch supervisor, my colleague mentioned this idea. And my supervisor said to me ‘would you, when you go home tonight, ask your husband to come in next week and discuss the options?’ I said ‘of course’. And then he asked me to draft a quick email to the chief of our counterproliferation division letting him know that this might happen. And it was that email that was taken out of context and a portion of which appeared in the Senate Select Intelligence committee report in 2004.
She expanded on this answer at the one hour twenty-seven minute mark, in an exchange with Georgian Republican, Rep. Lynn Westmoreland. Westmoreland wanted to know why the Counterproliferation committee had difficulty remembering who was responsible for sending her husband to Niger.
Valerie Plame: Congressman I believe one of the one of the pieces of evidence that emerged from the Libby trial was an INR memo of that meeting, where it states in fact that…uh…my husband was not particularly looking forward to…didn’t think it was necessary. There had been, I believe, as least two other reports…one by a three-star general and one by the ambassador on the ground that said there really wasn’t much to this allegation. And the INR folks that attended the meeting also said, ‘Well…we’re not really sure this is necessary.” But, it was ultimately decided that he would go and use his contacts, which were extensive in the government, to see if there was anything more to this. It was a serious question, asked by the Vice-President, and it deserved a serious answer.
There is one more piece of this, and I am just going to pull it from David Corn rather than find and transcribe it. I’ll put a big chunk in here for contextual purposes and then bold the part that isn’t contained above.
For years, White House allies have tried to dismiss the importance of Wilson’s trip by suggesting he was not qualified for the mission and had been sent (perhaps on a nepotistic junket) by his wife. They have pointed to a Senate intelligence committee report that suggested Valerie Wilson was instrumental in sending him. Before the House committee, she testified that she did not have the authority to dispatch her husband on such a trip, that a coworker had the idea to send Joe Wilson (who years earlier had taken on a similar assignment for the Counterproliferation Division), and that she had merely been asked to write a note confirming her husband’s credentials. She also said that a colleague was misquoted within the Senate intelligence committee report (saying she had proposed her husband for the trip) and that this colleague subsequently was prevented by a superior from sending the committee a memo correcting the record. In other words, her husband’s detractors have overplayed this angle. (By he way, much of this story was reported in Hubris.) Democrats on the committee said they would ask the CIA for a copy of the smothered memo.
