Trama

CIA operative Valerie Plame discovers her identity is allegedly leaked by the government as payback for an op-ed article her husband wrote criticizing the Bush administration.

Plame's status as a CIA agent was revealed by White House officials allegedly out to discredit her husband after he wrote a 2003 New York Times op-ed piece saying that the Bush administration had manipulated intelligence about weapons of mass destruction to justify the invasion of Iraq.—anonymous

In the run-up to the Iraq War, Valerie Plame, a supervisor of covert operations at the CIA, is assigned to determine if Saddam has nuclear weapons. In secret, she interviews scientists inside Iraq and suggests that her husband go to Niger to investigate a report from the Vice President's office that Iraq bought enriched uranium there. When the country goes to war, in part based on the President's claim that the sale took place, Plame's husband, Joe Wilson, writes in the New York Times that the report is false. The White House smears the couple to change the subject. Her career ruined, his credibility under attack, their marriage starts to crack. Can they find trust and fight back?—<jhailey@hotmail.com>

Valerie Plame is employed by the Central Intelligence Agency, a fact known outside the agency to no one except her husband and parents. She is an agent involved in a number of sensitive and sometimes dangerous covert operations overseas.

Her husband, Joseph C. Wilson, is a diplomat who most recently has served as a U.S. ambassador to Gabon, Sao Tome and Principe. Due to his extensive background, Wilson is approached by Plame's CIA colleagues to travel to Niger and glean information as to whether yellowcake uranium is being procured by Iraq for use in the construction of nuclear weasons. Wilson determines to his own satisfaction that it is not.

After military action is taken by George W. Bush, who justifies it in a 2003 State of the Union address by alluding to the uranium's use in building weapons of mass destruction, Wilson submits an op-ed piece to the New York Times claiming these reports to be categorically untrue.

Plame's status as a CIA agent is subsequently revealed in the media, the leak possibly coming from White House officials including the Vice President's chief of staff and national security adviser, Scooter Libby, in part to discredit her husband's allegation that the Bush administration had manipulated intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq. As a result, Plame is instantly dismissed from the agency, leaving several of her delicate operations in limbo and creating a rift in her marriage.

Plame leaves her husband, further angered by his granting of television and print interviews, which expose them both to public condemnation and death threats. Wilson ultimately persuades her, however, that there is no other way to fight a power as great as that of the White House for citizens like them. Plame returns to him and testifies before a Congressional committee, while Libby is convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice and given a 30-month prison sentence, although President Bush commutes the jail time on Libby's behalf.