Fair Game

I saw a movie on DVD several nights ago, and it blew me away.  First, some background.

Surely your remember back in July of 2003 when Valerie Plame was identified as a CIA agent in a newspaper column by Robert Novak.  As we later learned, he was given the information by Richard Armitage of the State Department.  The suspicion is that Armitage was acting at the direction of Scooter Libby, who was then on Vice President Dick Cheney's staff.  Early in 2007 Libby was convicted of obstruction of justice, though not of the more serious crime of disclosing the identity of an undercover agent.  George W. Bush commuted Libby's prison sentence a few months after his conviction.  Though presidential advisor Karl Rove and Cheney himself were suspected of playing a part in the disclosing of Plame's CIA connection, none of them have been formally charged.

Why would they take such an action against an agent of the U.S. government?  Revenge.  Plame's husband is Joseph Wilson, a retired U.S. ambassador.  Because of his knowledge of central Africa, Wilson was sent to Niger in 2002 to investigate reports that Saddam Hussein was trying to buy yellowcake uranium from that country.  It would be evidence of Saddam's determination to develop weapons of mass destruction.  In fact, Wilson found no such evidence.  Despite Wilson's findings, George W. Bush declared as part of his State of the Union Address in January 2003:  "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."  This so upset Wilson that he wrote an "op-ed" piece for The New York Times entitled "What I Didn't Find in Africa" on July 6, 2003.  This was after the start of the war in Iraq in March of that year and "Mission Accomplished" on May 1.  By undercutting the rationale for the war, many people believe that Wilson enraged the White House, leading to the retaliation against his wife, Valerie Plame.

Even though all these events dominated the news in 2003-2007, I did not follow them closely.  Yet I was aware that a movie of the events, Fair Game, had come out in November of 2010, and I knew I wanted to see it.  When I viewed it several nights ago, I found it to be an excellent, compelling piece, brilliantly acted by Naomi Watts and Sean Penn, who played Plame and Wilson, respectively.  Still, I found myself wondering how accurate it all might be.

Just before ejecting the DVD, I decided to check the "Special Features," and there was the option of enabling commentary by the real Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson.  I listened to a little of it and quickly realized how significant it was.  So I watched the entire movie again with their commentary.  It was simply fascinating to hear them confirm the accuracy of the various details.  A skeptic might argue their credibility, but I don't believe there would be many skeptics left after hearing them comment on the details of this movie for an hour and a half.  It was simply one of the most engaging movie-watching experiences I have ever had.