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WASHINGTON - The ex-CIA spy at the heart of a scandal that snared Vice President Dick Cheney's top aide said today her undercover career was cut short when Bush administration officials revealed her identity.
Speaking publicly for the first time in the four years since a newspaper article blew her cover, Valerie Plame Wilson told a congressional committee: "I felt like I had been hit in the gut."
"I could no longer do the work which I had been trained to do," she said.
The much-anticipated testimony by the striking blonde, the subject of a photo spread in Vanity Fair magazine, drew dozens of reporters and photographers and was shown live on cable TV news channels.
Plame's cover was blown shortly after her diplomat husband accused the Bush administration of twisting intelligence to build a case for invading Iraq.
She remained silent as investigators sought to determine if government officials broke any laws by revealing her identity to reporters.
Nobody has been charged with blowing Plame's cover, but Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's former chief of staff, was found guilty earlier this month of lying and obstructing the investigation.
Evidence at that trial showed Libby and several other White House officials leaked Plame's identity in order to discredit her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson.
The CIA sent Wilson to Niger in 2002 to examine Iraq's nuclear ambitions. His 2003 account of that trip put the White House on the defensive over whether it had misled the public about Iraq's nuclear capabilities, a key reason for starting the war.
The narrow focus of the Libby trial left unanswered many questions about the significance of the leak of Plame's identity. Allies of the Bush administration have stated that it did little damage because she worked a desk job at CIA headquarters.
'Not common knowledge'
Plame, 43, told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that she held covert status at the time and few people knew she worked at the CIA.
"It was not common knowledge on the Georgetown cocktail circuit," she said, referring to the trendy Washington neighborhood.
She said the disclosure effectively ended her ability to go on secret missions overseas, as she had done recently, and would make it more difficult for the CIA to recruit spies in the future.
"My name and identity were carelessly and recklessly abused by senior government officials in the White House and State Department," she said. "They should have been diligent in protecting me, and every CIA officer."
Plame also said she was not responsible for sending her husband on the Niger trip, as White House officials had implied.
Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, a California Democrat, said Congress would further investigate if White House officials abused classified information.
"It's not about Scooter Libby and it's not about Valerie Plame Wilson," Waxman said. "It's about the integrity of our national security."
The committee's ranking Republican, Virginia Rep. Tom Davis, questioned whether the CIA had adequately protected Plame's covert status.
Plame, who has left the CIA, recently moved with her family from Washington to New Mexico.
- REUTERS
