December 12, 2010 -- I never could understand the whole fuss about the Valerie Plame affair. You know, Plame (Mrs. Joe Wilson) the CIA operative whose secret was exposed by columnist Robert Novak. Novak's primary source for the story was Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. I don't really understand the theory behind this leak and how it was supposed to help the Bush Administration sell the Iraq war. Rather than a vast conspiracy, it seems more like a bone headed blunder. The film “Fair Game” tries to make this seem like a big deal by depicting the blown cover as costing people's lives and possibly causing nuclear proliferation in Iran. The argument can be made that this is true, but the supporting evidence is thin.

In the film, Valerie Plame is played by Naomi Watts of “The International.” She is depicted as a covert operative, running all over the world doing spy stuff. She is also running teams of spies from her CIA office. Her goal is to prevent nuclear proliferation. One of her operations is to spirit away nuclear scientists from Iraq at the beginning of the Iraq War. The idea is to bring them to the U.S. and keep them out of the hands of dangerous countries like Iran. When her cover is blown in Novak's newspaper column, some of the nuclear scientists who are ready to leave the country are killed. Plame's other operations are stopped or handed over to others. Does this mean that blowing Plame's cover as a spy could have led to some Iraqi scientists slipping away to Iran or being murdered by Israeli operatives? The movie seems to imply this.

The trouble is, there is considerable doubt that was the case. Investigative reporter Bob Woodward said in a televised interview (and this, of course, is not in the film), “They did a damage assessment within the CIA ... and turned out it was quite minimal damage. They did not have to pull anyone out undercover abroad. They didn't have to resettle anyone. There was no physical danger to anyone, and there was just some embarrassment.” There is also some dispute as to whether or not Plame was actually a covert operative. It seems unlikely that she was quite as active as an undercover agent as she was depicted to be in the film, but we'll probably never know because it is classified secret.

In the movie, Vice President Dick Cheney, his chief of staff, Scooter Libby, presidential advisor Karl Rove and others high up in the Bush Administration were behind the leaking of information about Plame. Richard Armitage, Novak's source, is hardly mentioned at all in the film. The theory is that people in the White House were mad at Plame's husband, Joe Wilson (played by Sean Penn of “The Assassination of Richard Nixon”), who was opposed to the war, and that is why they leaked the information on Plame. Joe Wilson had written some columns pointing out there were no shipments of enriched uranium yellow cake from Africa to Iraq, as Bush officials had said in the run up to the war.

The question is, how would this leak help the White House? Revealing the fact that Wilson's wife works for the CIA certainly doesn't hurt his credibility, it enhances it. Much is made in the film, and in real life, over whether or not Wilson's wife recommended her husband for the African fact-finding trip. It doesn't matter whether it was Wilson's idea, the CIA's idea, Wilson's wife's idea, or somebody else's idea. The fact is, the CIA authorized his trip. He went. He was qualified to assess the situation. He made a report. The report was ignored. I just don't see how this helps the White House. Sure, it is a distraction, but why not just say Wilson worked for the Clinton Administration, so his political beliefs led him to produce an inaccurate report? That makes more sense than exposing his wife's CIA job. Let's face it. This wasn't a good plan. It landed Scooter Libby in jail and tarnished the credibility of the White House. If “Bush's Brain” Karl Rove, really did cook up this plan, as the movie argues, I would bet he would not do it again if he had a chance to take this decision back.

If you are willing to go along with the story being told in this movie, what was done was serious and tragic. People were killed as a result of the leak and Novak's column. Entire CIA operations in the Middle East and elsewhere were put in jeopardy. Joe Wilson and Valerie's lives became a living hell. They were in danger of losing their house because of the negative impact on Joe Wilson's business, all for some mysterious game of political advantage that makes no sense. This movie makes that case, and it makes it pretty well. While I don't buy the arguments it makes, it is an interesting and entertaining movie nonetheless. I just don't know whether it is shedding light on the Valerie Plame affair, or just putting a left spin on the tale. It rates a B.

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