WASHINGTON – Former CIA officer Valerie Plame and her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, said Friday that they decided to sue Vice President Dick Cheney and presidential adviser Karl Rove because they engaged in a “whispering campaign” to destroy her career.
Plame said, “I and my former colleagues trusted the government to protect us in our jobs,” and the government “betrayed that trust. I’d much rather be continuing my career as a public servant than as a plaintiff in a lawsuit.”
Said Wilson: “We are under no illusions about how tough this fight will be. But we believe the time has come to hold those who use their official positions to exact personal revenge accountable and responsible for their actions.”
His wife said they decided to pursue the lawsuit with “heavy hearts.”
In the suit filed Thursday in U.S. District Court, Plame and her husband said Cheney, Rove and Cheney’s former chief of staff, Lewis Libby, leaked her CIA status to reporters to punish Wilson for criticizing the Bush administration’s motives in Iraq.
Plame’s identity as a CIA officer was revealed in a July 14, 2003, article by syndicated columnist Robert Novak. At the time, Plame’s job as an operations officer was classified information. Novak’s column appeared eight days after Wilson alleged in an opinion piece in The New York Times that the Bush administration had twisted prewar intelligence on Iraq to justify going to war.
The lawsuit accuses Cheney, Libby, Rove and 10 unnamed administration officials or political operatives of putting the lives of Plame, Wilson and their children at risk by exposing Plame, who left the CIA in January and is writing a book about what has happened.
At Friday’s news conference, Wilson made note of his opinion piece criticizing the administration’s defense of going to war in Iraq, saying, “I exercised my civil duty to hold my government to account.”
“This attack was based on lies and disinformation, and it included the compromise of Valerie’s identity,” he added. “I have confidence in the American system of justice, and this suit is about the pursuit of justice.”
The CIA had sent Wilson to Niger in early 2002 to determine whether there was any truth to reports that Iraq had made a deal to acquire yellowcake uranium from the government of Niger to make a nuclear weapon. Wilson discounted the reports, but the allegation that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Africa ended up in President Bush’s 2003 State of the Union address.
If Wilson and Plame’s lawsuit survives the legal maneuvering that often occurs in such cases, it could be embarrassing for Republicans during the next presidential election if Cheney and other top White House officials are forced to answer questions in depositions.
Wilson and Plame’s lawyer said in the lawsuit that it “concerns the intentional and malicious exposure by senior officials of the federal government of … (Plame), whose job it was to gather intelligence to make the nation safer and who risked her life for her country.”
The civil lawsuit seeks unspecified damages, attorneys’ fees and costs.
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