Out In The Big Bubble- Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson’s Fair Game (2010)-A Film Review 

DVD Review 

By Sam Lowell 

Fair Game, starring Naomi Waits, Sean Penn, based on the writings of Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson, 2010  

It is a rather odd circumstance when I am rooting for a CIA agent to win, or at least get out from under what burden he or she is facing. Not that I wish any particular harm but the agency as a whole is usually in my sights for criticism for its nefarious activities. Those activities, as highlighted in the film under review Fair Game about the “outing” of CIA operative Valerie Plame over her assessments about the rationale for the Iraq War (the one started officially in 2003 not the earlier one in 1991 although there is a connection about the fate of the Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction, WMD, that link the two together) including some very shady dealings around the lead-up to the war in 2002. Although that agency was hardly the prime culprit for that disastrous war policy that we are still paying for in cash, lives, including innocent Iraqi citizen lives, and for arbitrary use of military power that had made the world cringe before and has since the initial phase of the military campaign was completed.    

Valerie Plame Wilson was a career CIA operative whose tasks included checking up on the bad guys who were looking to get nuclear weapons for jihad or whatever purpose bad guys were looking for powerful weapons. In the post-9/11 world that task took on greater importance as the American government under President Bush was looking for a rationale to blast Iraq’s dictator and nemesis Saddam off the map as part of the overall national security plan to thwart the international terrorist cabals. The Bush administration (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Powell, et al) were looking for any evidence that Saddam had his WMD program still intact after 1991. So even the slightest evidence that would physically prove that he was still pursuing his program was welcome-they would “spin” whatever tidbits they had once they got a bite.     

One big piece of “evidence” that was making the rounds, the thing that got Valerie, played by Naomi Waits, and her ex-ambassador husband, Joe Wilson, played by Sean Penn was “yellowcake” uranium, lots of it, allegedly being sought by the Iraqis from Niger in Africa. During the lead-up to the war the CIA “hired” Joe, who had contacts in the area, in Niger, to verify if possible that trail. Joe’s conclusion: the “purchase” didn’t exist, nada, nothing of the kind. Of course that conclusion when the CIA kicked it upstairs died a quiet death. Lost amount a million other things in the welter of war. The administration had buried the information deep in some hole and had spun a whole different unture tale and Joe was ticked off about it.      

As the disastrous policy in Iraq unfolded Joe Wilson, who had connections in the press, wrote an op-ed article about his true findings in Niger concerning the yellowcake. Then all hell broke loose. Administration officials were running for cover, guys like Karl Rove and Scooter Libby in particular. A little trick they played to get even was to “out” Valerie Plume. A no-no. A no-no as far as federal law went and a no-no as far as Joe Wilson was concerned. While Valerie was the “good soldier” keeping quiet despite her being kicked out of the agency Joe was determined to find the culprits who did his wife and her career in. And he succeeded, or at least had the satisfaction to see somebody take the fall (Scooter Libby who was subsequently sentenced and pardoned for his crimes). A small victory against the big boys by an average citizen. That part is to the good. Still I am a little uneasy about having had to raise my fist and say well done Joe and Valerie. An interesting topical movie in the age of serious “disinformation” and “false” news.