Speaker 1: Special Operations Cobert as Spionage The Team House with your
Speaker 1: hosts Jack Murphy and David Park.
Speaker 2: Hi, everyone, welcome to episode three hundred and fifty of
Speaker 2: The Team House. I'm Jack Murphy here today with our
Speaker 2: guest Valerie Plame. She is the author of Fair Game,
Speaker 2: How a top CIA Agent was betrayed by her own government,
Speaker 2: and the book Fair Game was also turned into a
Speaker 2: feature film starring the always lovely Naomi Watts portraying Valerie
Speaker 2: and Sean Penn playing Valerie's late husband, Joe Wilson, who
Speaker 2: is a State Department ambassador to West Africa and some
Speaker 2: other places that we'll definitely get into. Valerie has an
Speaker 2: incredible story from her time at the Central Intelligence Agency,
Speaker 2: crossing over with some previous guests on The Team House,
Speaker 2: of course, and then eventually how the government outed her name.
Speaker 2: She was a protected CIA officer under the I believe
Speaker 2: it's the National Intelligence Identities Protection Act. It's kind of illegal,
Speaker 2: especially illegal for someone in the government to out a
Speaker 2: covered intelligence officer, and that was done to Valerie because
Speaker 2: of her husband's activism against the Iraq War. So we'll
Speaker 2: get into all of that in the interview. Valerie, thank you,
Speaker 2: for joining us.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me. What a pleasure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, So first question is about your origin story,
Speaker 2: if you tell us a little bit about how you
Speaker 2: grew up. And you know you grew up in a
Speaker 2: military family.
Speaker 3: Too, I did. My dad was an Air Force officer,
Speaker 3: he served in World War Two, my brother was a
Speaker 3: marine wounded in Vietnam. And my mother was a public
Speaker 3: school teacher. So I definitely came from a family of
Speaker 3: quiet public service. And I was given the opportunity to
Speaker 3: join the agency rather young, and I jumped at it.
Speaker 3: I thought, you know, what a great way to serve.
Speaker 3: I came in at a time when it was very
Speaker 3: clear who was wearing the black hats, the Soviets. We
Speaker 3: were the white guys wearing the white hats, and it
Speaker 3: seemed exciting, and the government was going to pay me
Speaker 3: and let me live and work overseas. So I was
Speaker 3: all in.
Speaker 2: And I imagine you must have had a college degree
Speaker 2: at this point, at least I did.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I did, but I ended up getting a few
Speaker 3: more degrees later.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, that's interesting too. We'll get into your graduate
Speaker 2: school down the line. Your brother was a real bad ass.
Speaker 2: He was a recon marine in Vietnam. Sounds like a
Speaker 2: hardcore guy. And then so, how did you actually like
Speaker 2: get recruited by the CIA? Was it like a job's
Speaker 2: fare at your school or did you go to them?
Speaker 4: How did that work?
Speaker 3: They came on campus. I was undergraduate at Penn State University,
Speaker 3: and they had only recently begun to sort of expand
Speaker 3: their recruitment efforts beyond the IVS and beyond just white males.
Speaker 3: So under Casey, there was a huge build up in
Speaker 3: the intelligence budget because he really had President Reagan's ear,
Speaker 3: and they started looking wider, further afield, because we obviously
Speaker 3: have a global mission and the best way to accomplish
Speaker 3: that is to have a more diverse field to throw
Speaker 3: at it. Even though I know those are not words
Speaker 3: that are treasured today. Yeah, but I quite young, and
Speaker 3: I went through It's a very long, arduous recruitment process.
Speaker 3: It's psychological tests, it's vignettes, it's medical background checks, lots
Speaker 3: of psychological exams and so you know, fill in the blank,
Speaker 3: also written exams. And at the end of it, many
Speaker 3: many months later, they offered me a job. Okay, you know,
Speaker 3: when you're young, you really you think why not give it?
Speaker 3: A try. So I went in and I do my
Speaker 3: paramilitary training, which, as you quickly find out, it's not
Speaker 3: because they think they will drop you in behind lines
Speaker 3: in Mother Russia. It's really to build a spree de
Speaker 3: core and to double check exactly who it is that
Speaker 3: they have only recently hired. What is your character, What
Speaker 3: are you trustworthy? Do you have integrity? Are you can
Speaker 3: you be counted on? And find that out under very
Speaker 3: challenging conditions. It's not quite like basic training in the Marines,
Speaker 3: but they try to simulate that to ratchet up the stress.
Speaker 2: You guys did parachute training in seer type training, you know,
Speaker 2: detention and being interrogated to I guess you're saying that's
Speaker 2: to show you know your bravery, your resiliency, These sorts
Speaker 2: of personality traits they're looking.
Speaker 3: For absolutely, and some people do wash out. The agency
Speaker 3: tends to be kind and say, well, we can offer
Speaker 3: you a job here, you know, someplace else. But not
Speaker 3: everyone finishes who started, that's for sure. But I think
Speaker 3: in part because I was so young, and you know,
Speaker 3: you kind of ignorance is bliss right. You're like, oh, okay,
Speaker 3: I'm just going to do my best to keep up
Speaker 3: with these guys, and I loved it. It was hard,
Speaker 3: and you're being continuously evaluated. As you might imagine. The
Speaker 3: instructors at that time were badass former Vietnam vets, and
Speaker 3: they did not give you any slack. And they are
Speaker 3: constantly reporting back to headquarters on how you're doing. And
Speaker 3: most importantly I think, is your character? Do you show up?
Speaker 3: Are you responsible? You know? Do you you know? How
Speaker 3: do you take on a challenge? How do you respond
Speaker 3: as you say resiliency as well?
Speaker 2: And after the paramilitary training, did you go right into
Speaker 2: the farm and trade craft or do you have like
Speaker 2: some OJT in between.
Speaker 3: Some OJT in between? And then some months later I
Speaker 3: go back. I was hired on to go in Director
Speaker 3: of Operations, which I think it's that is the core
Speaker 3: emission of what the agency does. Recruit spies, foreign spies,
Speaker 3: pass that intelligence to senior US policymakers, and there's the
Speaker 3: Intelligence Directorate is that it was called at the time
Speaker 3: Director of Science and Technology. That's where we do our
Speaker 3: research and then ADMIN. So I was recruited to go
Speaker 3: into OPS, and which, to be fair, I really had
Speaker 3: no idea what I was doing. The Internet hadn't even
Speaker 3: been invented yet, And it's not like you could do
Speaker 3: a lot of reading on what the hell have I
Speaker 3: just said I'm going to do? But you just keep
Speaker 3: following it along and there were really good people for
Speaker 3: the most part. And so then you do the ops training,
Speaker 3: which is very much focused on tradecraft and the classic
Speaker 3: recruitment cycle, which is SPOT says, develop and recruit. How
Speaker 3: do you do that? How do you write a reports?
Speaker 3: How do you take clandestine photographs? How do you devise
Speaker 3: and implement sdr how do you keep yourself safe? How
Speaker 3: do you keep your assets safe? Many many different aspects
Speaker 3: besides the most important one of how do you recruit?
Speaker 4: And so you took to the training quite well, I think, yes.
Speaker 3: I mean I enjoyed it as grumbled like everyone else,
Speaker 3: I suppose, but yeah, I did really well.
Speaker 2: And what was your first assignment after graduating from the farm.
Speaker 3: I don't think I can say. I have to tread
Speaker 3: carefully because of everything that happened in two thousand and
Speaker 3: three with the outing of my true CIA identity, the
Speaker 3: agency has taken the stance that I can only you know,
Speaker 3: talk about certain things with clarity.
Speaker 2: After two thousand can I say Valerie because it's in
Speaker 2: your book. In the afterward, yes you can, I can.
Speaker 2: So Valerie's book is co written or you know. There's
Speaker 2: an apt afterward by Wara Rosen that kind of explores
Speaker 2: some of the sides of Valerie's career that the CIA
Speaker 2: Public Review Board would not allow her to publish. And
Speaker 2: so there's a pretty extensive chapter in there about you
Speaker 2: being in Athens, Greece and going after seventeen November, and
Speaker 2: some of the other stuff that was going on in
Speaker 2: that country at that time.
Speaker 3: There was, Yes, that whole episode of trying to get
Speaker 3: this book through the publication review Board was very painful
Speaker 3: for me. I had served the CIA loyally and well,
Speaker 3: I was very successful in my career. I was outed.
Speaker 3: I wanted to write about what happened. Of course, I
Speaker 3: would never reveal sources and methods, anything that was classified.
Speaker 3: Everyone signs a secrecy agreement at the beginning of their
Speaker 3: employment that is sacred. But there was clearly some retribution
Speaker 3: going on, and they wanted to make the book so
Speaker 3: that it wouldn't even be published. So what the publisher did,
Speaker 3: Simon and Schuster. They hired this investigative journalist who dug
Speaker 3: up all this. You know a lot of things that
Speaker 3: she then pieced together in the afterward, and I would say,
Speaker 3: for the most part it is correct. There were some
Speaker 3: things that she got wrong, but because there was this firewall,
Speaker 3: I truly did not even read it until after the
Speaker 3: book had been published.
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Speaker 2: Well as you're able to, to the extent you're able to,
Speaker 2: can you tell us about that first assignment what it
Speaker 2: was like?
Speaker 3: Well, your first assignment, you're you're putting into practice as
Speaker 3: things that they have taught you at the farm and
Speaker 3: a completely academic, relatively safe environment, and you know, how
Speaker 3: does this thing work? And I was going after indigenous
Speaker 3: terrorist groups. Of course, the Soviets were always the top
Speaker 3: target at that time. You're really the saying goes and
Speaker 3: it's true, you really it takes about five years to
Speaker 3: make a case officer. You are just You're just a baby.
Speaker 3: You are so green. You don't really get how this works.
Speaker 3: They hire you, They bring you in based on certain
Speaker 3: characteristics that you possess, curiosity, listening, ability in a person, skills,
Speaker 3: so for so on. You know, they do these in
Speaker 3: depth psychological examinations, but there's no way of knowing how
Speaker 3: that really works in the field. You're out there, and
Speaker 3: if you're lucky, you you have some mentors there. I was.
Speaker 3: I was just speaking to one of your former guests.
Speaker 3: He's a friend, Jim Lawler, and we were both reminiscing.
Speaker 3: And I don't know, maybe you've had him on the show.
Speaker 3: Have you had Joe Petnelly on your show?
Speaker 2: No, we haven't, but we did have Kiriaku on the show,
Speaker 2: who I think you must have crossed paths with at
Speaker 2: some point.
Speaker 3: Not not No, I knew him only when he became famous,
Speaker 3: but I didn't work with him. But Petnelly was one
Speaker 3: of my bosses a couple of times, and a wonderful mentor,
Speaker 3: and he we Jim and I Lawler and I both
Speaker 3: agreed one of the best recruiters in the agency. He
Speaker 3: just has a way about him that people you know,
Speaker 3: he doesn't recruit so much as people surrender to him. Okay,
Speaker 3: you know, Tailway, how could I possibly pass you intelligence?
Speaker 3: Because he and you can't teach that. You cannot teach that,
Speaker 3: but you can do your best to emulate some of
Speaker 3: the tactics.
Speaker 2: Well, what do you think that quality is that makes
Speaker 2: someone an exceptionally talented recruiter?
Speaker 3: Jim has it as well in spades. It is a
Speaker 3: couple things. A deep ability to listen carefully and then
Speaker 3: pick up on what you've heard, because that's how you
Speaker 3: find out what someone's motivation potentially could be to cooperate
Speaker 3: with the United States Intelligence. You know, there's also of
Speaker 3: the old saw of mice money, ideology, compromise, ego is always,
Speaker 3: to my experience, been a bit of each. It's rarely
Speaker 3: just one. Luck plays a role as well. But with
Speaker 3: people like Patnelly and Jim Lawler, Uh, not that they're
Speaker 3: James Bond, but they they really possess a heightened sense
Speaker 3: of sussing out in the other person what that motivation
Speaker 3: might be, as well as a deep sense that and
Speaker 3: it's true that they mean what they're what they say,
Speaker 3: and that they will keep you safe and you and
Speaker 3: you believe that and therefore go on to commit illegal
Speaker 3: acts in your own country. You know, see it whatever
Speaker 3: it is, and it is an ineffable, effable characteristic that
Speaker 3: I don't think can be bottled and sold.
Speaker 2: After that assignment, extensibly to grease you kind of went
Speaker 2: into a new role. It sounds like with nonofficial cover,
Speaker 2: what are you allowed to say about that?
Speaker 3: I can speak in general terms for your audience, who
Speaker 3: probably already knows this, But there's a wide spectrum of covers.
Speaker 3: On one end, you have official cover. That's where you
Speaker 3: are affiliated with the US government, and that typically you
Speaker 3: might be saying that you work in the political section
Speaker 3: at the embassy in so and so country. That is
Speaker 3: your cover, but in fact your real job is with
Speaker 3: the agency. At the other end of that spectrum is
Speaker 3: non official cover officer. You have no affiliation whatsoever with
Speaker 3: the United States government. You're working as a consultant for ACME, Stormdoor, whatever.
Speaker 3: And then there's a whole bunch of steps and different
Speaker 3: covers in between, depending on what the circumstances are. Do
Speaker 3: you need it just for the moment, do you need
Speaker 3: it to be quite deep? How far are they going
Speaker 3: to push? And of course in this day and age
Speaker 3: of Google and the Internet, that that is not so
Speaker 3: easy to create and maintain a legend.
Speaker 4: Right, And was it a little odd or unique?
Speaker 2: Maybe, I should say, for someone like you to go
Speaker 2: from serving under official cover in an embassy to nonofficial cover,
Speaker 2: it usually seems like it goes the other way around, right.
Speaker 3: And I think I can say that I advocated strongly.
Speaker 3: I wanted to go back to school and get some
Speaker 3: additional graduate work done, so it provided me a little
Speaker 3: bit of separation. But that is not typical.
Speaker 2: So I mean I think he went to was it
Speaker 2: the London School of Economics I did?
Speaker 3: And the College of Europe and Bruges.
Speaker 2: And so was that to develop your non official cover
Speaker 2: or was it the other way around that you wanted
Speaker 2: to go to graduate school and they're like, oh, maybe
Speaker 2: we can use this to send you somewhere.
Speaker 3: I think it's the latter. I can't speak too much
Speaker 3: to that, but it all worked out, yes, except for
Speaker 3: the fact that my career ended much sooner than I
Speaker 3: had nothing to do with that.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So again Laura talks about and you're afterward that you
Speaker 2: were working as an energy consultant, and that's also in
Speaker 2: the film too, working for an energy company called Brewster
Speaker 2: Jennings that probably you're not allowed to say anything about,
Speaker 2: but from there it sounds like was this about the
Speaker 2: timeframe that you start to intersect with Jim Waller and
Speaker 2: Paula Doyle doing.
Speaker 4: The counter Weapons of Mass Destruction mission?
Speaker 3: Correct. In nineteen ninety six or seven, the CIA sent
Speaker 3: up a set up there Counter Proliferation Division, so that
Speaker 3: is distinct from the geographical divisions of Africa, Europe or
Speaker 3: Latin America. This one was focused on the transnational issues
Speaker 3: of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons WMD. And I thought
Speaker 3: that is interesting because that is if I'm going to
Speaker 3: remain in the agency, I want to do something that
Speaker 3: is really meaningful, particularly in the nuclear aspect. So yes,
Speaker 3: I started working there in the kunter of Proliferation Division.
Speaker 3: And of course it's look, I was a liberal arts major.
Speaker 3: I'm not like a physics person. But the agency in
Speaker 3: the government is great at training you. And to be
Speaker 3: able to marry some knowledge about nuclear weapons with the
Speaker 3: operational aspect is what we were doing. And we were
Speaker 3: going after black marketeers and rogue nation states terrorists, of course,
Speaker 3: and just to back track one step or two, it all.
Speaker 3: I think what precipitated setting up that kind of proliferation
Speaker 3: division was in nineteen ninety five on the Tokyo Subway,
Speaker 3: if you recall, there was a staring gas attack by
Speaker 3: a cult Aram Sharinko, and I think that was really
Speaker 3: the first time that the US government sat up and said, huh,
Speaker 3: we really need to pay attention and pull together a
Speaker 3: lot of different strains in the US government to focus
Speaker 3: on this new and emergent WMD threat. And to me,
Speaker 3: I thought, yeah, put me in coach, you know, that's
Speaker 3: exactly what I want to be working on.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Reading between the reactions, especially in the first third of
Speaker 2: your book, it sounds like you spent quite a bit
Speaker 2: of time.
Speaker 4: It was at oak Ridge Laboratories.
Speaker 3: I've spent time at I can say all the laboratories, okay,
Speaker 3: And to be honest, I can say this. I live
Speaker 3: in New Mexico and the reason I first got out
Speaker 3: here was to come to Los Alamos National Lab and
Speaker 3: I was doing a lot of work out there, working
Speaker 3: in a liaison capacity between the lab and CIA headquarters,
Speaker 3: and I really fell in love with northern New Mexico,
Speaker 3: and so that's where I am now.
Speaker 2: And so this was to sort of like train you
Speaker 2: up on the nuclear physics side of it so that
Speaker 2: you knew what to look for and your work as
Speaker 2: an intelligence officer.
Speaker 3: Yes, and to work closely with them on very sensitive operations.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: At the afterward of the book that talks about James
Speaker 2: Rising digging up a few ops that didn't turn out
Speaker 2: so well from the way it sounds. But as I
Speaker 2: was mentioned to you before the show, Tim Winer's new
Speaker 2: book which is coming out this summer, The Mission the
Speaker 2: CIA in the twenty first Century, there's a whole chapter
Speaker 2: in here about Jim Waller and Paula Doyle doing some
Speaker 2: epic stuff, like some epic counter WMD stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Jim headed up what I guess we could call
Speaker 3: the aq Khn Takedown Team. I've heard him call it that,
Speaker 3: so I guess that's okay. Focused on aq Khan, who
Speaker 3: was actually not a nuclear physicist but a metallurgist by training,
Speaker 3: but certainly a nuclear entrepreneur responsible for the Pakistani nuclear bomb,
Speaker 3: and really without him and his efforts, we would not
Speaker 3: be so worried about an Iran nuclear program or a
Speaker 3: North Korean nuclear program. And thanks to Jim and Paula
Speaker 3: and so many others who worked with them. They really
Speaker 3: put a dent in that network.
Speaker 2: And so you mentioned h Jim Waller calling it the
Speaker 2: aq CON takedown team. You had another term in your book,
Speaker 2: the Island of Misfit Toys.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well that was the whole CPD division. And the
Speaker 3: reason I call it that is because nothing quite well.
Speaker 3: We had a what now they call fusion centers, the
Speaker 3: counter terrorist Center had been set up some years before
Speaker 3: where they brought this is unheard of where they put
Speaker 3: an analyst next to an operative Collie that you no
Speaker 3: one ever considered doing that. And that's we amplified that
Speaker 3: effort with CPD kind of proliferation division, bringing people experts,
Speaker 3: biological weapons experts from you know, some other place in
Speaker 3: the government, and there were analysts, and there were operatives,
Speaker 3: and we had what we were called, I think they
Speaker 3: still call him this targeteers. You know, look at a
Speaker 3: list of scientists, who's the one that we should go after?
Speaker 3: Who was a key there? So it was a brilliant
Speaker 3: scheme and it worked very well in making a dent
Speaker 3: in what the mission was WMD.
Speaker 2: And around this timeframe, I also feel like to tell
Speaker 2: the story I need to ask you about meeting your
Speaker 2: late husband, Joe Wilson, how that kind of came about,
Speaker 2: and that relationship came about I think somewhere during this timeframe.
Speaker 3: Yeah, correct, Although we were both living in Europe, we
Speaker 3: met in Washington, d C. And it was love at
Speaker 3: first sight and it got very serious, very quickly. And
Speaker 3: even though he wasn't with the agency as an ambassador
Speaker 3: and having spent his career in missions overseas, he certainly
Speaker 3: understood my world. So it was that was just right,
Speaker 3: you know. I felt he understood. I didn't have to
Speaker 3: explain a lot of things to him. He understood when
Speaker 3: I couldn't tell him everything. And so we got married.
Speaker 3: And he was working right before the millennium, the turn
Speaker 3: of the millennium. He was working for the Clinton White House.
Speaker 3: He was the head of the NSC for Africa. If
Speaker 3: you recall when Clinton went to Africa, He's the one
Speaker 3: who coordinated that whole trip. And he just I mean,
Speaker 3: he loved Africa and had been I think to all
Speaker 3: the countries there and had worked on war and peace
Speaker 3: and had quite a career. Although what he was known
Speaker 3: for when I met him, and I had to like
Speaker 3: look this up to make sure. He wasn't just bssing me.
Speaker 3: He was a charge of a fair in Baghdad during
Speaker 3: the First Golf War April Glassbie, the ambassador had left
Speaker 3: for leave, and just in that moment, Saddam Hussein decides
Speaker 3: to invade Kuwait. So he's on the phone every day
Speaker 3: with George H. W. Bush and getting that all ramped up,
Speaker 3: and he and the communicator and maybe one other were
Speaker 3: the last ones out before the bombing started in January
Speaker 3: ninety one, and that really obviously elevated his presence. He
Speaker 3: was holding press conferences every day and dealing with Saddam
Speaker 3: Hussein's henchmen and Tarika Zia's to try to free the hostages.
Speaker 3: Remember that that he the guests of Saddam Hussain and
Speaker 3: dealing with the Americans that were scattered around Baghdad and
Speaker 3: giving them safety, safe haven. So it was a you know,
Speaker 3: a grow time to grow up really fast. He was
Speaker 3: quite young, but a hell of a lot of responsibility,
Speaker 3: and so that pushed his career. And when I first
Speaker 3: met him, he's telling me this story, and of course
Speaker 3: I watched you know on CNN, which was all I
Speaker 3: was watching the war like everyone else unfold and I
Speaker 3: was putting two and two together and go, oh, you're
Speaker 3: that guy, right, Okay, So yeah, we met and fell
Speaker 3: in love, got married and had twins in two thousand one.
Speaker 2: Thing I'd like to talk about in regards to Joe
Speaker 2: that I think comes out in your book is he
Speaker 2: struck me as being like a real idealist, like he
Speaker 2: was somebody that like believes in America.
Speaker 3: He was, I think he would be so saddened where
Speaker 3: we are now, at the erosion of our democracy. And
Speaker 3: despite the Republicans' best efforts, they tried to paint him
Speaker 3: as this, you know, hardcore lefty COMMI dem and that's
Speaker 3: not true both of us, and I would say this
Speaker 3: is true of everyone who serves oversees. You serve as
Speaker 3: an American, You don't serve as a Democrat or a Republican.
Speaker 3: You serve you know, you have your personal values, but
Speaker 3: who you vote for is secondary to maintaining the national
Speaker 3: security of the United States. And yeah, he was not
Speaker 3: a typical diplomat, I think it's fair to say. But
Speaker 3: that's I think what also made him successful.
Speaker 2: So on that note, Joe retires out of the State Department,
Speaker 2: has his own private consultancy liaisonning with governments around Africa.
Speaker 2: Utilizing those relationships tell us about how his trip to
Speaker 2: Nigier comes about, because that's like pivotal, pivotal to your
Speaker 2: entire story exactly.
Speaker 3: So I'll start with nine to eleven. Nine to eleven happens.
Speaker 3: We're into Afghanistan, the CIA is in there within eleven,
Speaker 3: laying the groundwork. We begin bombing Tora Bora. But even
Speaker 3: before that happens and the hunt is on for bid Laden,
Speaker 3: we know that Secretary of Rumsfeld is out at Camp David,
Speaker 3: and he's opening up the map of a Rock, saying,
Speaker 3: you know, there's not much left to bomb in Afghanistan,
Speaker 3: but a rock. We got something there. And for reasons
Speaker 3: we can say for another conversation that it had been
Speaker 3: a long held desire of the neo cons that in
Speaker 3: power to invade a rock. They felt that George W's
Speaker 3: father h W, during the Gulf War had not gone
Speaker 3: far enough. Remember they didn't go to Baghdad. They only
Speaker 3: you know, pushed them, pushed Saddam's troops back into Iraq,
Speaker 3: and so there's a great deal of consternation around that.
Speaker 3: So this was an opportunity handed to them after the
Speaker 3: disaster of nine to eleven to really flex American military muscle.
Speaker 3: So it was clear at the CIA at the time
Speaker 3: I was working in Iraq operations or looking at their
Speaker 3: particular you know, what was the state of their WMD,
Speaker 3: And it was clear the administration was ramping up looking
Speaker 3: to see what was there. And in February two thousand
Speaker 3: and two, I have someone colleague come and say, you
Speaker 3: won't believe what just happened to me. The Office of
Speaker 3: the Vice President just called me asking me about this
Speaker 3: intelligence report of five hundred tons of yellow cake uranium
Speaker 3: that had been transshipped from Niger to Iraq, and you
Speaker 3: know what's that all about? So I take it to
Speaker 3: my boss, tell him Joe had served in Niger, he
Speaker 3: knew all the players. And my boss said, well, Value,
Speaker 3: when you go home today, would you please ask Joe
Speaker 3: to come in to headquarters. We want to sit him
Speaker 3: down talk to him about this. I mean, this is
Speaker 3: this is totally normal if you have an American, particularly
Speaker 3: a trusted one, that you could gather additional intelligence to
Speaker 3: help feed into the machine of intelligence analysis. Yay. So
Speaker 3: I did that and Joe came in. I was not
Speaker 3: in the meeting. He sat down. It's in there's a
Speaker 3: scene of this in the movie, and he's like, this
Speaker 3: sounds like nonsense, but yeah, sure, if you want me
Speaker 3: to go to Nisier and check out the origins of
Speaker 3: this report, I'm happy to do so. So he did.
Speaker 3: He went pro bono. He did because he wanted to
Speaker 3: serve his country. There was a question asked, he wanted
Speaker 3: to answer it, and he came back and he was
Speaker 3: debriefed by CIA analysts and what he told him was, listen,
Speaker 3: there's nothing to this. This is totally bogus. Someone would
Speaker 3: have noticed five hundred tons of yellow cake karadium. I
Speaker 3: just don't think this is true. And it actually fit
Speaker 3: aligned exactly to what our ambassador was saying. There was
Speaker 3: another four star general saying the same thing. And we
Speaker 3: get submitted and he goes, you know, we don't think
Speaker 3: anything more of it. He goes back to his consulting
Speaker 3: business and I'm doing my work. But then fast forward
Speaker 3: to January two thousand and three and Bush gives his
Speaker 3: State of the Union address and in it he talks
Speaker 3: about how recent reporting has shown that Saddam Hussein has
Speaker 3: sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa and Joe hears that,
Speaker 3: and he goes, what the hell you know, because he
Speaker 3: knows that that's what it's referring to, and he starts
Speaker 3: discreetly inquiring his former State Department colleagues up on the hill.
Speaker 3: How did this get into the president's speech? You know,
Speaker 3: this has been debunked. This did not happen. I don't
Speaker 3: know where you're coming up with this, but everyone's pretty
Speaker 3: much in a jingoistic fury at this point. And certainly
Speaker 3: I was in Kuwait that time frame, right before the war,
Speaker 3: right before we went in, and it was clear, I mean,
Speaker 3: the hundreds and thousands of troops and tanks and material
Speaker 3: that we had on the border was that's not just
Speaker 3: there for show, Valerie.
Speaker 2: I just want to point out, on like a semi
Speaker 2: personal note, not to make this about myself, but I
Speaker 2: mean make it about a larger group of people, you know,
Speaker 2: Iraq war veterans, that to read your book and books
Speaker 2: written by people in similar positions and government is actually
Speaker 2: very traumatic for me. As you know, I was nineteen
Speaker 2: when the war kicked off. I was still in training,
Speaker 2: and then I deployed to Iraq twice. Other guys did
Speaker 2: way more time over there than I. Did served harder
Speaker 2: than I did. People lost their lives, some people lost limbs.
Speaker 3: Terrible.
Speaker 2: We'll get into it deeper, i'm sure through the interview,
Speaker 2: but I mean, this run up to the Iraq War
Speaker 2: is like, honestly quite traumatic to read about. The you know,
Speaker 2: not the quote Noam Chomsky, but the manufacturing of consent
Speaker 2: even within the intelligence community itself.
Speaker 3: Oh absolutely, I think we will view this as the greatest,
Speaker 3: one of our greatest follies and mistakes. Ever, there's no
Speaker 3: question that the ministration wanted to go to war. As
Speaker 3: I said, we could have a whole conversation on why
Speaker 3: that was, but they were bound and determined, and this
Speaker 3: was the piece of it to show that Saddam Hussein
Speaker 3: was reconstituting his nuclear program. And Joe was He was
Speaker 3: many things, but he was certainly a truth teller and
Speaker 3: that's why what led him ultimately to write that a
Speaker 3: ed piece for the New York Times that came out
Speaker 3: in July two thousand and three, they said, this is
Speaker 3: the intelligence has been cherry picked. There. You know, we
Speaker 3: were told that we're going to see the smoking gun
Speaker 3: in the shape of a mushroom cloud, and that is bullshit.
Speaker 4: Before we move on.
Speaker 2: Could you just speak a little bit directly towards the
Speaker 2: pressure on the CIA that was coming out of Dick
Speaker 2: Cheney's office, And it's in the film. I don't know
Speaker 2: if this is if it actually happened, Scooter Libby actually
Speaker 2: coming down to CIA and like debriefing analysts.
Speaker 4: Is that kind of is that kind of pressure appropriate?
Speaker 5: Is it?
Speaker 4: Lead?
Speaker 3: No? I mean, I think most people in the intelligence world,
Speaker 3: I'm sure you would agree, would rather chew off their
Speaker 3: right arm than be accused of somehow twisting intelligence to
Speaker 3: fit political ends. It's like just a fax, ma'am. Right,
Speaker 3: just the facts here you go. But that clearly all
Speaker 3: went to hell in the run up to the war.
Speaker 3: And it's true Scooter Libby and others came to CIA
Speaker 3: headquarters and I suppose I can give them a little
Speaker 3: bit of latitude. And here's how and why, because after
Speaker 3: the First Golf War, Saddam Hussein's son in law defected
Speaker 3: to Jordan. We got a hold of them for a
Speaker 3: little bit a few months, and we found out through
Speaker 3: the son in law that Rock had much further advanced
Speaker 3: in their nuclear capabilities than we understood, which scared us deeply.
Speaker 3: And then the idiot went back. He redeffected back to Saddamazin,
Speaker 3: who promptly shot him. But that scared a lot of
Speaker 3: people that we had completely missed this. Since you mentioned
Speaker 3: to Miner's book, I'm going to mention Achilles Heel and
Speaker 3: by the oh, I can't remember the author right this minute. Outstanding.
Speaker 3: It just came out maybe two years ago talking about
Speaker 3: the history of America and Iraq and how we were
Speaker 3: always talking past each other, everyone's bluffing, We don't understand.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's classic and it leads to tragic, tragic ends.
Speaker 2: Didn't it come out in the aftermath thought Saddam Hussein
Speaker 2: had unilaterally destroyed his WMD program but wanted to trick
Speaker 2: the Iranians into thinking that he still had it exactly.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's been pointed out rough neighborhood. You want
Speaker 3: to look as big and as scary as you possibly are.
Speaker 3: But he thought the Americans kind of knew, wink wink,
Speaker 3: what the real deal was, but we didn't. And it
Speaker 3: was just so, you know, so many miscommunications and mis cues,
Speaker 3: and there's no doubt, uh, you know, having Saddam husaying
Speaker 3: not living anymore is probably a good thing. He was
Speaker 3: a horrible person and caused the deaths of thousands. But
Speaker 3: there is a larger question of did it make a
Speaker 3: lot of sense to go in and occupy, invade, occupy,
Speaker 3: and try to control a rock. I don't know if
Speaker 3: it's better off today.
Speaker 2: So Joe's op ed comes out, tell us a little
Speaker 2: bit about that. It sounds like it went over like
Speaker 2: a lead balloon with the administration.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, they were not happy, he writes his op
Speaker 3: ed piece. And two days later, if I recall, what's
Speaker 3: his name, the spokesman ari Ari Fleer bye shir, Yes,
Speaker 3: all these aims. Uh he comes, He's like, yeah, you know,
Speaker 3: that shouldn't have been in the It didn't rise to
Speaker 3: the level of inclusion in the State of the Union address.
Speaker 3: That should have been it go home, move on. But no,
Speaker 3: I think this is my speculation. I think the White
Speaker 3: House was feeling particularly vulnerable at that moment in time
Speaker 3: because although combat operations have more or less finished, they're
Speaker 3: doing mop up that they are the insurgency is definitely
Speaker 3: coming on strong, and things are spiling out of control.
Speaker 2: And they're looking for the WMDs and they're not finding.
Speaker 3: Oh there's not there. Oh yeah, you know, you know
Speaker 3: that thing that we told you we're going to war for.
Speaker 3: It's not here. It's not here. And so you have
Speaker 3: the minds of Scooter Libby and Carl Rove like, oh my,
Speaker 3: this is not good pr at all. And again my speculation,
Speaker 3: but I think let's make this story about excuse me,
Speaker 3: Joe Wilson and Valerie Plane. And then it was off
Speaker 3: to the races. We were called traders and liars. Well
Speaker 3: back up, Joe writes is at that piece. One week later,
Speaker 3: July fourteenth, Robert Novak, conservative columnist, writes a column and
Speaker 3: he outs me as working for the CIA, and somehow
Speaker 3: I'm complicit in all of this. And it just became
Speaker 3: it was, as I call it, like falling down Alice's
Speaker 3: rabbit hole or white as black and black as white.
Speaker 3: It became a huge deal because I think it hit
Speaker 3: just at the moment when the American public where like
Speaker 3: you say, wait, wait, wait, what there's no WMD And
Speaker 3: here's Joe Wilson, good looking, reputable, you know US official
Speaker 3: who's sang, yeah, we've been lied to. And so a
Speaker 3: couple months later, the CIA referred the case to the
Speaker 3: Department of Justice for who leaked.
Speaker 4: My name, because that's illegal.
Speaker 3: Under that is illegal. Yes, as you're not supposed to
Speaker 3: do that. Now there is a cutout. Novak gets a
Speaker 3: get out of jail free card because he's a journalist.
Speaker 3: He's he died some years ago. I think he was
Speaker 3: really just a piece of grass under the elephants. You know.
Speaker 3: H'd do whatever his his ideological superiors told him to do.
Speaker 3: But it obviously ended my career abruptly. I could no
Speaker 3: longer be covert. It's there was a huge character assassination
Speaker 3: campaign against Joe Wilson and myself. We were because it
Speaker 3: it spoke to the very heart of what the Bush
Speaker 3: administration had told us why we're going to go to war.
Speaker 2: It does seem like it's a bit of like a precursor,
Speaker 2: like they were trying to frame you two as being
Speaker 2: like the deep state that's in yeah, trying to thwart
Speaker 2: the United States government and their righteous actions. But the
Speaker 2: way they outed you, especially, I mean, I guess Joe
Speaker 2: kind of is fair game if he's writing op eds
Speaker 2: absolutely and vocal, but the way they came after you
Speaker 2: and illegally outed you in the newspaper, I mean, was
Speaker 2: just punitive and kind of depraved honestly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was no fun. There were years and years,
Speaker 3: honestly of chronic stress where you're being relent Both of
Speaker 3: us are being relentlessly attacked. Our characters are being torn apart.
Speaker 3: My career is over his, you know, Joe's consulting. Who
Speaker 3: wants to touch a consultant who's such a political hot potato?
Speaker 3: And it was it was hard. There's no The movie
Speaker 3: depicts that quite accurately. Sean Penn captured Joe Wilson very
Speaker 3: very well, and that at least that chapter ended. In
Speaker 3: March of two thousand and seven, when Scooter Libby was
Speaker 3: convicted of lying instruction of justice. He clearly took the
Speaker 3: fall for Cheney and others. And you know, but so
Speaker 3: what he gets, I think it was disbarred for three minutes,
Speaker 3: and he never his uh he was. He was pardoned,
Speaker 3: He never served ut jail time, and he was pardoned
Speaker 3: by President Trump during his first term.
Speaker 2: Just to go back a little bit, I think you
Speaker 2: call it in your book the Year from Hell and
Speaker 2: the the I mean tell us about how this kind
Speaker 2: of like unspools and Scooter Libby kind of is at
Speaker 2: the heart of all of it, and how you kind
Speaker 2: of learned that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well we learned really through reporting from uh in
Speaker 3: the Washington Post, in the New York Times, Judith Miller,
Speaker 3: who basically had the front page real estate of the
Speaker 3: New York Times and then run up to the war
Speaker 3: with the Rock writing she was as I call her
Speaker 3: Challaby's scribe. She just wrote whatever that she's not a
Speaker 3: real reporter. And Scooter Libby. There was although Libby was
Speaker 3: one who took the fall, there was a conspiracy. And
Speaker 3: by that I mean there were multiple people who knew
Speaker 3: where I worked and somehow tried to make the claim
Speaker 3: that Joe and I were behind these insidious I don't know.
Speaker 3: I mean, when you have the power of the government,
Speaker 3: I mean, I know it doesn't make sense looking back
Speaker 3: at it, but at the time they have the whole
Speaker 3: power of the government behind them to destroy us.
Speaker 4: And what did that feel like?
Speaker 2: I mean, I have to ask, like for both of
Speaker 2: you as a couple, I mean, what's that like to
Speaker 2: have like the power structure is coming down on you hard?
Speaker 3: Horrible. We had small children. Our children were very small
Speaker 3: at the time. You're trying to shield them, try to
Speaker 3: be somewhat attentive parents when there's news trucks outside of
Speaker 3: your front door. It was just bizarre. And again, I mean,
Speaker 3: my career was done, Joe's career was done, and it
Speaker 3: was and our reputations were shredded, and yeah, you're right.
Speaker 3: It was sort of a prelap to what we're seeing
Speaker 3: today with the deep state paranoia. I think another sample
Speaker 3: run to that was what they tried to do to
Speaker 3: John Kerry during the two thousand and four election with
Speaker 3: swift voting, like how far can we test the system?
Speaker 3: Like how far can we take this?
Speaker 2: And we sall and tell us about the Libby trial?
Speaker 2: Is that dragged on for quite a while and had
Speaker 2: you guys kind of walking on eggshells I think for
Speaker 2: a bit.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, the special prosecutor named by the Justice Department
Speaker 3: was Patrick Fitzgerald. Excellent prosecutor, straight arrow kind of guy.
Speaker 3: I think unfortunately he felt he could not maybe some
Speaker 3: prosecutors like I only want to go if I have
Speaker 3: an eighty five percent chance of conviction. And because Libby
Speaker 3: took the fall, he didn't get as many as he
Speaker 3: had hoped to really uncover this.
Speaker 4: Karl Cheney and the whole the whole.
Speaker 3: The whole gang, the whole gang, yeah, exactly where are
Speaker 3: they now? Some of them are back in the administration.
Speaker 3: Although I did just see I don't know if he
Speaker 3: had a role in my outing or whatnot, but he
Speaker 3: was definitely involved in the run up to the war.
Speaker 3: Was Michael Ledeen And he just he just passed. He
Speaker 3: was a hardcore Neocon and pushed for the war in
Speaker 3: I Rock as much as anyone else.
Speaker 2: So Libby gets convicted. President George W. Bush commutes his
Speaker 2: prison sentence. So, as you point out, he didn't serve
Speaker 2: any prison time. You resigned from the CIA in two
Speaker 2: thousand and six. Then two thousand and seven, some things
Speaker 2: seemed to change too. In addition to the trial, their
Speaker 2: midterm elections. People are getting really pissed off about the
Speaker 2: war in Iraq. Can tell us a little bit about
Speaker 2: the two thousand and seven pre war intel assessment? That
Speaker 2: was it one of the intelligence committees?
Speaker 3: Did? Yes? I think the Sscience Committee and intelligence. Well,
Speaker 3: what happened in the run up to the war. In
Speaker 3: the year following, the vast majority of Americans were in
Speaker 3: favor of it. They were told, I mean, their Vice
Speaker 3: President's telling them that al Qaeda, the people who brought
Speaker 3: you nine to eleven are responsible for what's going on
Speaker 3: in Iraq, and if you know anything about geopolitics, a
Speaker 3: bald faced lie. And over time, slowly is reality is
Speaker 3: settled in I think Americans now it went from in
Speaker 3: favor seventy to thirty to the reverse, where you know,
Speaker 3: just a small percentage of people think going into a
Speaker 3: rock was a good idea. But here we are. And
Speaker 3: General Powell had that great line of you know the
Speaker 3: pottery brine rule if you if you break it, you
Speaker 3: own it. And here we are.
Speaker 2: So you guys both feel that it's time to escape Washington,
Speaker 2: DC around this time frame, like enough is enough.
Speaker 3: Oh, I said to Joe, we have to get out.
Speaker 3: I mean, one of one or the other is going
Speaker 3: to die with the pressure, with the chronic stress was
Speaker 3: just too much. So, as I mentioned, I had fallen
Speaker 3: in love with northern New Mexico, and so we settled
Speaker 3: in Santa Fe with our small children and just started
Speaker 3: to remake our lives. We didn't know anyone out here,
Speaker 3: we didn't know anything about it, but it is a
Speaker 3: nice part of the world.
Speaker 2: So I'd love to hear a little bit about you know,
Speaker 2: the movie and then the well, the book and then
Speaker 2: the movie When and When and why you decided to
Speaker 2: write the book. It's sort of the trials and tribulations.
Speaker 2: It sounds like you had getting that out there to
Speaker 2: the public.
Speaker 3: Oh horrible. I wanted to write the book because it
Speaker 3: was frankly selfish. It was a Catharsis. Everyone had spoken
Speaker 3: about me for me, and I wanted to put it down.
Speaker 3: And as I said earlier, I would never ever reveal
Speaker 3: sources and methods any classified information. But the agency at
Speaker 3: that time was still filled with Bush administration types or
Speaker 3: those that were aligned with them, and saw it as
Speaker 3: a threat and tried very very hard to make sure
Speaker 3: that it wasn't published, and they I ended up suing
Speaker 3: them on first amendmic grounds, but when you say national security,
Speaker 3: they always win, which is nonsense. The stuff that's underneath
Speaker 3: the reactions has nothing to do with national security. But
Speaker 3: they just wanted to make it practically unreadable.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I noticed there's parts of it where like you're talking
Speaker 2: about your pregnancy and there's like these big reaction like
Speaker 2: what's that.
Speaker 3: I know, I know, yeah, postpartum, I don't know. It
Speaker 3: was really just revenge retribution, But I did write it.
Speaker 3: It was very much my story. I just sat down
Speaker 3: and I wrote I don't know a thousand words every day,
Speaker 3: you know, boom, got it out and you run it
Speaker 3: through the process. That that became a nightmare in itself.
Speaker 3: But finally it was published in two thousand and seven,
Speaker 3: and Joe's book had been published earlier, and then we
Speaker 3: were approached to make take those two books and make
Speaker 3: a movie out of it. So that's what happened.
Speaker 4: Yeah, how'd that come about?
Speaker 2: Was it like a production company or a director that
Speaker 2: contacted you?
Speaker 3: Yeah. The director was Doug Lyman, who has done, among
Speaker 3: other things, mister Missus Smith and the Bourne Identity. Very
Speaker 3: good director and just the project came together and happily
Speaker 3: Joe and I were very engaged with it. We met
Speaker 3: with the writers excuse me, English brothers, the Butterers, Jez
Speaker 3: and John Henry, who actually just wrote Clooney's remake of
Speaker 3: The Bureau, which I yeah, they're really good. And it
Speaker 3: was surreal and weird to see a movie being made
Speaker 3: about what it's not and the tree. You know. Look,
Speaker 3: I never wanted to be a public person ever ever,
Speaker 3: And I loved my job. I was so proud to
Speaker 3: start my country. I felt, you know, when you when
Speaker 3: you do a good job and your boss says, hey,
Speaker 3: good job, val, that is satisfying enough. I don't need
Speaker 3: to be an influencer. I don't need to be on
Speaker 3: Oprah's couch. You know, i'd but that's not the hand
Speaker 3: we were dealt. So you play it the best you can.
Speaker 4: What did you think of the movie when it came out?
Speaker 3: I liked it and although weird you know, feelings about it,
Speaker 3: but I think it's a good movie. I saw it
Speaker 3: not too long ago again, and my kids are now
Speaker 3: older have seen it as adults, young adults. It it's
Speaker 3: not fool obviously, it is just a slice. It's a
Speaker 3: composite of but it's absolutely accurate. I mean other than
Speaker 3: what is condensed if you will, and so forth, but
Speaker 3: what is portrayed as accurate. So it's a I'm just glad.
Speaker 3: I'm not ashamed of it. It's you know, I'm sorry,
Speaker 3: Sorry Doug Lyman. He did a really good job. But
Speaker 3: it's scary as hell to someone say we're going to
Speaker 3: buy your life rights what.
Speaker 2: You know, Yeah, but yeah, but you got Naomi Watts
Speaker 2: and Sean Penn, so I mean it's it's a pretty
Speaker 2: good deal.
Speaker 3: It is. They're very they're very good actors, but you
Speaker 3: just don't know how you're going to portray, you know, shikes,
Speaker 3: it's out of your control. So but it has stood
Speaker 3: this test of time, and I think it's an important
Speaker 3: story to tell of holding your government to account.
Speaker 2: Another question before we kind of uh start to project
Speaker 2: into the future a bit here the book comes out
Speaker 2: in two thousand and and up until this point, I mean,
Speaker 2: I have to believe that you and Joe are both
Speaker 2: still very much living this story. You're in the moment,
Speaker 2: you're having to react to these things that are happening
Speaker 2: in your lives.
Speaker 4: Now here we.
Speaker 2: Are in, you know, twenty twenty five. I'd like to
Speaker 2: ask you if there have been any new revelations since
Speaker 2: the time that you published the book, if there's been
Speaker 2: anything more you've learned about either what was going on
Speaker 2: in your own office or what was going on in
Speaker 2: the vice president's office, anything that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a great question. I wouldn't say there's any
Speaker 3: uha moments of I didn't know that at all, But
Speaker 3: I have read deeply and widely to have a better understanding,
Speaker 3: because you just know your little piece of it, like
Speaker 3: you know the blind men and the elephants. You just
Speaker 3: feel you just have your little part of that. I
Speaker 3: still don't have a very clear understanding of how m
Speaker 3: I have my suspicions, but how my name was passed
Speaker 3: to the White House. How did that happen? I think
Speaker 3: I know, but I don't want to say, because I
Speaker 3: don't know for sure. And as more and more has
Speaker 3: come out subsequently to that understanding what was going on
Speaker 3: behind the scenes. I've become friendly with Colonel Larry Wilkerson,
Speaker 3: if you know that name is because he was chief
Speaker 3: of staff to Cole and Powell, and I really admire him,
Speaker 3: and he had a he had a different perch, but
Speaker 3: a bird's eye view to what was going on, And
Speaker 3: so I've learned that, But I wouldn't say that there's
Speaker 3: anything that I was shocked by. People acted without integrity
Speaker 3: and for their own ideological reasons, and I don't know
Speaker 3: if we've learned any lessons from it.
Speaker 2: Well, on that note, the first Trump administration gave Scooter
Speaker 2: Libby a pardon for the whole crimes that he was
Speaker 2: convicted of. Why do you think that pardon? Well, first off, obviously,
Speaker 2: George W. Bush didn't feel comfortable being, you know, given him.
Speaker 2: And I think that Wara points out in the afterward,
Speaker 2: if he had pardoned him, then he wouldn't have immunity,
Speaker 2: or his Fifth Amendment rights wouldn't have applied the same way.
Speaker 2: There's something like that. They would could they could put
Speaker 2: him on the stand and testimony.
Speaker 3: I don't know. My sense is Trump has absolutely no
Speaker 3: idea who Scooter Libby is. Could care less. But he
Speaker 3: was told by those around him that, you know, we
Speaker 3: we don't want to leave a soldier on the fields
Speaker 3: or and this is really important, and it's it's politics
Speaker 3: of the worst partisan, politics of the worst kind. And
Speaker 3: I did hear later that, as Bush and Cheney were
Speaker 3: in the limousine heading to Obama's inaugura in two thousand
Speaker 3: and eight, once again, Cheney's trying to talk Bush into
Speaker 3: pardoning Libby at the last moment. I don't know it's true.
Speaker 3: I wasn't in the limo, but Bush's I don't want
Speaker 3: to hear it. Stop it. You know, I don't enough already,
Speaker 3: and I don't think they're particularly close now, but I
Speaker 3: would love to do. And let's see. So in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty three, twentieth anniversary of our invasion. They did a
Speaker 3: lot of retrospectives then on the war twenty years later.
Speaker 3: Where are we now? I want to see what I've
Speaker 3: never I would be so interested in sort of a
Speaker 3: rogues gallery of all the men. And there were mostly
Speaker 3: men with a couple of exceptions Condi Rice, that were
Speaker 3: so gung ho on invading and occupying the rock? How'd
Speaker 3: that work out for you? Where are they now? Where's
Speaker 3: a now? What you know? The tens of hundreds of
Speaker 3: thousands of civilians that have been killed or left and terrible.
Speaker 2: The more moderate voices like your husband's at your late husband, they.
Speaker 4: Were shouted down.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of younger people don't really understand
Speaker 2: what that post nine to eleven period was like. But
Speaker 2: those voices were shouted down and portrayed as pinko liberal commis.
Speaker 3: Right, how foolish? Yeah, naive? And Joe was none of
Speaker 3: those things. But his point was, to paraphrase what he
Speaker 3: probably would say, is at least right now, Saddami saying
Speaker 3: anti bellum. You know he's contained, We know what we have.
Speaker 3: What exactly are you going to do with the country
Speaker 3: if you own it? This whole idea of the proconsul
Speaker 3: we had what was his name? You know, as it
Speaker 3: went in, there you go Bremmer and the deep othification,
Speaker 3: and it was just freaking chaos, anarchy, stupid for what end.
Speaker 2: To push forward a little bit, you know, you had mentioned,
Speaker 2: you know, before we started the show that maybe we
Speaker 2: could talk a little bit about what's going on in
Speaker 2: the intelligence community today. Your story is profoundly, in my opinion,
Speaker 2: about the politicization of intelligence. That's the takeaway I hope
Speaker 2: people have about it. How do you see that today?
Speaker 3: It's worse, unfortunately, far worse. We are in a very
Speaker 3: dangerous period, very dangerous. I think we're more vulnerable than
Speaker 3: we ever have been before or at certain times in history.
Speaker 3: I don't think the intelligence community got the full Doge treatment,
Speaker 3: but there is certainly people were let go. Just last week,
Speaker 3: the NSC got got cheered and not half you know,
Speaker 3: they were given half an hour to clean out their desks.
Speaker 3: It is so specialized, and we put so much time
Speaker 3: and money into finding talent and and nurturing that talent
Speaker 3: and maintain and retaining that talent. To simply humiliate people
Speaker 3: and tell them, you know, what are the five things
Speaker 3: you did last week? Sort of thing I mean, it's
Speaker 3: it's bad enough across in any organization to treat people
Speaker 3: without such with such disrespect, But when you're dealing with
Speaker 3: those in the intelligence community that have access to very
Speaker 3: sensitive information and have you know, a lot of money
Speaker 3: resources and poor into them, really dumb, really dumb idea.
Speaker 3: That said, I've long been an advocate of genuine reform
Speaker 3: at the IC, just not done like a banana republic,
Speaker 3: you know, with yeah, get all get out of here
Speaker 3: with your chainsaw. Ridiculous, but we have got weird. We
Speaker 3: could have a whole conversation on how risk adverse we
Speaker 3: are and so forth, But there was just an article
Speaker 3: yesterdays so Washington Post. I think about John Ratcliffe, head
Speaker 3: of the CIA, and realizing, hmm, we really need human sources.
Speaker 3: That's right, that's what the CIA does best. We are
Speaker 3: up to I think seventeen intelligence organizations. I think it
Speaker 3: could be argued by well meaning people on both sides
Speaker 3: that that may be too many and you may need
Speaker 3: to have to streamline that. Don't get me started. Until
Speaker 3: Gabbert and the DNI. The d N I was this
Speaker 3: hair brain I think hair brained idea that came after
Speaker 3: nine to eleven Oh, we have to. You know, it's
Speaker 3: just another layer of bureaucracy. So I'm all for reform,
Speaker 3: except how it's been executed under this administration is potentially catastrophic.
Speaker 4: Yeah, chaotic at best.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well that brings us to where you're at today. Uh,
Speaker 2: where's Valerie Plane?
Speaker 4: Now?
Speaker 3: I do writing and speaking. I'm still a very strong advocate,
Speaker 3: just overtly for about the nuclear threat, something I care
Speaker 3: about deeply. I think there's two existential threats, climate change
Speaker 3: and the nuclear threat, so the latter is something I
Speaker 3: know a little bit about. I also host a conference
Speaker 3: called Spic Sized Nookes and I it started when I
Speaker 3: called up some of my former colleagues lall Are being
Speaker 3: among them, say hey, you want to come out to
Speaker 3: Santa Fe. We'll put together this conference on counterintelligence on disguise,
Speaker 3: on what the heck is going on in Gaza. Obviously
Speaker 3: there's no classified information, but it is open to the
Speaker 3: public and its purpose is to educate as well as
Speaker 3: entertain So I really enjoyed doing that. As always, I
Speaker 3: have a couple projects simmering with streamers and doing some
Speaker 3: producing and consulting in the entertainment realm. Espionage seems to
Speaker 3: be evergreen to a certain extent. Most of the time,
Speaker 3: I roll my eyes. I cannot watch it because it's
Speaker 3: so ridiculous. But I have the luxury right now of
Speaker 3: I just work on things that I want to with
Speaker 3: people I like. Otherwise I'm not interested.
Speaker 2: You mentioned that you keep your hand in, you know,
Speaker 2: analyzing the nuclear threat, and I want to ask you
Speaker 2: about you know, the pre eminent one that we always
Speaker 2: talk about is Iran, and we've had this talk. It
Speaker 2: feels like my entire life that something's got to be
Speaker 2: done about Iran. The counter argument people say that they're
Speaker 2: like Japan, they want to maintain a capability to create
Speaker 2: a bomb if they want one at some time in
Speaker 2: the future, but are not, and it's sort of a
Speaker 2: implied de terrence.
Speaker 4: I guess what's your view about it?
Speaker 3: Listen. I was a strong advocate for the Iran deal,
Speaker 3: the JCPOA or whatever japoah poor acronym. Yeah, they came
Speaker 3: up with that Obama wall put together. No deal is
Speaker 3: going to be perfect. Why it's called a deal. Each
Speaker 3: side gives something to get something in return, and I
Speaker 3: thought what we got in return, not to develop a
Speaker 3: nuclear weapon was worthwhile. Trump redline that got rid of it.
Speaker 3: Now they're back in talk. So it seemed to be
Speaker 3: going precisely nowhere. It's hard to you know, the river
Speaker 3: has moved on. It's never the same. It was an
Speaker 3: opportunity that I believe that we have missed completely. And meanwhile,
Speaker 3: nuclear proliferation continues to pace around the world, but now
Speaker 3: we have to contend with absolutely emergent China. We have AI.
Speaker 3: You know, how does that affect the threat? It's I mean,
Speaker 3: we've just been lucky. We've just been lucky that there
Speaker 3: has not been some horrible nuclear incident we saw just
Speaker 3: a few weeks ago India and Pakistan or no to
Speaker 3: knows to nose. That is a that isn't people say,
Speaker 3: what do you worry about? That is a night at
Speaker 3: mare scenario because millions of people's lives are at risk
Speaker 3: if something were to be lobbed over the border. So
Speaker 3: there's still work to be done. And I was fortunate
Speaker 3: enough to be in a documentary called Countown to Zero
Speaker 3: that came out some years ago. But it's just as
Speaker 3: relevant as ever. It's really not just because I'm in it,
Speaker 3: but it's really well done. It talks about the nuclear
Speaker 3: threat and it's just it's still not only relevant, it's
Speaker 3: in fact even more intense today.
Speaker 2: I think that we have a couple of viewer questions
Speaker 2: for you, Valerie, before we get going here today.
Speaker 4: Okay, what do we got the.
Speaker 5: So it's from Corbin, what's the best way to catch
Speaker 5: a Russian potato thief?
Speaker 3: Is this a joke? Or is this a reference to
Speaker 3: In the movie Countdown to Zero? The joke was that
Speaker 3: potatoes were guarded better in post Soviet Russia nuclear weapons.
Speaker 3: So I don't know what. Possibly, yeah, possibly.
Speaker 5: A joke from Jay we had? Did Fair Game give
Speaker 5: an accurate representation of what you and your family went through?
Speaker 5: And what did it fail to capture?
Speaker 3: Yes, it gave an accurate representation. It couldn't possibly capture
Speaker 3: the dread and the many many sleepless nights when you
Speaker 3: have the entire power of the US government apparatus determined
Speaker 3: to destroy you.
Speaker 5: From Duncan, Idaho, insofar as you can say anything about it.
Speaker 5: How does the training for a for a knock differ
Speaker 5: from that of a regular CIA officer?
Speaker 3: Good question. It would be country specific. Depending on where
Speaker 3: that knock would be placed, there's usually more intensive surveillance
Speaker 3: detection training that goes into it, and there is some
Speaker 3: covert communication tweaks that you have to understand and know about.
Speaker 5: I have one question, Valerie. When you went in front
Speaker 5: of the Senate and testified, you went from being you know,
Speaker 5: a clandestine person, somebody under cover most of your life too,
Speaker 5: now you're everywhere. What was that like? Was it nerve wracking?
Speaker 5: Was it scary?
Speaker 3: I practically I was so nervous I practically fell out
Speaker 3: of my shoes. And can I just say for the record,
Speaker 3: I did that like without any chemical help whatsoever. And
Speaker 3: it was I was terrified. I'm not a public person.
Speaker 3: I'm good running a meeting. I got that, you know,
Speaker 3: I got my team. I tell you what to do,
Speaker 3: how to do. I'm not I'm hardly shy, but this
Speaker 3: is a whole different level. And it was uh uh,
Speaker 3: you know, my mouth was dry. I testified for I
Speaker 3: don't know, three or four hours. It seemed like three
Speaker 3: or four days. And uh but I I did it
Speaker 3: because it was important for my at that point for
Speaker 3: my voice to be heard. And I advocated for how
Speaker 3: do you keep classified information classified? Which as a tangent
Speaker 3: but related the case against Trump and the classified documents case, myself,
Speaker 3: all my former colleagues absolutely horrified. We would have been
Speaker 3: dead ass fired if we had treated classified documents.
Speaker 2: A way you mean, you mean having fifty boxes of
Speaker 2: TSSCI and your shit or would don't go over so well?
Speaker 3: Not so well? Yeah, And I was like not even
Speaker 3: like nicely stacked, right, it was like, oh, just shoved
Speaker 3: in the powder room. Unbelievable. How about and his how
Speaker 3: that case ended being dismissed by a judge he appointed
Speaker 3: just makes me sick. You know, I never got a
Speaker 3: security violation, but I made sure I didn't. Right, all
Speaker 3: of us feel that way. You You can make the
Speaker 3: argument that many things are overclassified, but that doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: You were still responsible. You took a notath that you
Speaker 3: would protect that information and those assets that information reveal.
Speaker 2: Valerie, any questions I failed to ask anything you'd like
Speaker 2: to talk about that we didn't bring up.
Speaker 3: No, you were fantastic. You gave the whole toward the horizon.
Speaker 3: And it's I'll tell you, when I do talks like this,
Speaker 3: it's hard for me to imagine that these events that
Speaker 3: kicked off all this how you even know my name?
Speaker 3: Happened over twenty years ago. Personally, I would have to say,
Speaker 3: just like you admitted to the little PTSD thinking about
Speaker 3: the run up to the war with Rock, I'm still
Speaker 3: unpacking it. It impacted me profoundly, as you might imagine,
Speaker 3: personally and professionally, and it's taken me to be honest
Speaker 3: when when the COVID lockdown happened, was the first time
Speaker 3: that I sort of slowed down, that I was able
Speaker 3: to go what the hell just happened? And for me
Speaker 3: personally to have that quiet and enforced which I know
Speaker 3: was terrible for many people, but it allowed me some
Speaker 3: enforced quiet to come to terms with that crazy story.
Speaker 4: What you experienced?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and like kind of that out of body
Speaker 2: experience of asking yourself what did I experience?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 3: Yeah, what the hell? What's happened? Yeah?
Speaker 2: So is there anything you'd like to plug? Where people
Speaker 2: can find you online if they're looking to retain your
Speaker 2: services or anything else?
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you. You can find me either at Valerieplane
Speaker 3: dot com or the one that talks about my conference
Speaker 3: is Spy Sized Nukes dot com and you can contact
Speaker 3: me that way. And I am I had thought about
Speaker 3: doing a Mediterranean cruise for my Spy Size and nukes
Speaker 3: this fall, but I don't. I decided against it because
Speaker 3: people can't think about next week right now. There's so
Speaker 3: much volatility, geopolitical volatility, much less a couple of months
Speaker 3: from now. But we'll see where. I haven't given up
Speaker 3: on that idea altogether. But maybe I'll just do another
Speaker 3: land based conference in Santa Fe before the end of
Speaker 3: the year. So okay, we'll see.
Speaker 2: Great, and we will have links down the description of
Speaker 2: this podcast for all of you who are interested at
Speaker 2: checking that stuff out.
Speaker 4: It'll be right down there in the description.
Speaker 2: Valerie, thank you so much for your time and spending
Speaker 2: a little bit of your afternoon with us.
Speaker 3: What a pleasure. Thank you so much. I just realized
Speaker 3: that I was put in touch with you through our
Speaker 3: mutual friend, Doug Wise.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 3: I definitely want to have Doug at my next SPIC
Speaker 3: sized news conference. He and he lives down the road
Speaker 3: for me, well a little further, but he's great. We
Speaker 3: did not cross professionally, but thank you for making that,
Speaker 3: you know, thanks Doug for making that.
Speaker 4: Doug is Doug is a great guy.
Speaker 2: And uh, you know this is getting a little bit
Speaker 2: of insider baseball. I'll just say this about Doug. The
Speaker 2: reason why I know he's a great guy is because
Speaker 2: the CIA is not a particularly nice place for the
Speaker 2: women who work there. I notice every woman that worked
Speaker 2: with Doug Wise says he's a great guy and he
Speaker 2: was great to work with.
Speaker 3: I'm so happy to hear that, because you're absolutely right.
Speaker 3: We could do a whole pot pod as you should,
Speaker 3: maybe on women in intelligence. I wrote a ForWord for
Speaker 3: a book that's coming out Christina Hillsburg, former agency, and.
Speaker 4: Had on her her oh you have.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So her book is coming out Agents of Change, right,
Speaker 3: Agents of Change, and she did a great job of
Speaker 3: doing the sweep of history. And yeah, it's not a
Speaker 3: day at the beach. But I'm so glad to hear
Speaker 3: that about Doug.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, Doug. Doug's a great guy.
Speaker 2: And yeah, we had Christina and her husband on on
Speaker 2: the show together.
Speaker 4: They were both great. They're awesome.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Oh good. All right, Well, come come visit us
Speaker 3: out here in New Mexico, and all the best to
Speaker 3: you and your team. Thank you.
Speaker 4: Likewise, if you're coming through Brooklyn, let us know we'll
Speaker 4: be right.
Speaker 3: I will, I will, and.
Speaker 4: For everyone else out there, we will see you guys.
Speaker 4: Next time. Thanks for tuning in. Hey guys, it's Jack.
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Speaker 4: Thank you,