Ex-CIA spy's account unveiled - Plame - USA Today

Senate Republicans "obscenely twisted" facts and testimony from other CIA officers to falsely accuse Valerie Plame Wilson of sending her husband on a fact-finding trip to Africa that produced strong criticism of the Bush administration's basis for attacking Iraq, Plame Wilson told USA TODAY.

It was the first time Plame Wilson has publicly accused Sens. Pat Roberts of Kansas, Orrin Hatch of Utah and Kit Bond of Missouri of misstating her role in the Africa trip in a Senate report widely cited by her critics. The ex-spy, whose cover was effectively blown in a 2003 newspaper column, said the idea to send her husband, Joseph, to Niger to investigate reports that Iraq was buying uranium originated with a CIA colleague and was not part of a "conspiracy" to undermine the administration.

Joseph Wilson's conclusion — that the uranium report was false — and his subsequent charge that the Bush administration ignored his findings led to his wife's CIA identity being disclosed. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, a former aide to Vice President Cheney, was convicted last March of obstructing a federal investigation into the disclosure. President Bush commuted Libby's sentence.

"They took a fairly straightforward thing and obscenely twisted it into a political version of events," Plame Wilson said. "It's the reason this continues to be such a highly charged partisan issue."

More at link: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-10-21-plame-book_N.htm