WASHINGTON — With a phalanx of cameras awaiting her entrance, Valerie Plame stepped out of the spy-world shadows and into the spotlight.
For nearly four years, Plame had been a silent, Garbo-like figure at the center of one of Washington's most consuming scandals. Her unmasking as a covert CIA officer became a case study of the brutal politics of the Iraq war, and launched a criminal probe that led to the conviction of a top White House official.
On Friday, Plame finally offered her inside account. She testified before a congressional committee that she felt as if she had been "hit in the gut" when her once-secret identity appeared in the media, and accused the Bush administration of "recklessly" blowing her cover.
Plame answered lingering questions about her husband's role in investigating one of the administration's most alarming prewar claims about Iraq, and provided new details on the tense maneuvering between the White House and CIA in the run-up to the war.
But spectacle often trumped specifics. When Plame, 43, emerged from a doorway at the corner of the committee chambers, dozens of lenses swung in unison to catch her entrance. As she sat down to testify, there were twice as many photographers as lawmakers arrayed before her. And as she got up to leave, she swept her hands back and forth like a Hollywood actress accustomed to clearing her way through paparazzi.
At one point, Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga.) alluded to the flashbulb atmosphere, as well as the oddity of publicly questioning a woman who spent the bulk of her career hiding her identity.
"I've never questioned a spy before," Westmoreland said.
"I've never testified under oath before," Plame shot back.
In her opening statement, Plame made it clear that she has been waiting for a chance to confront critics. At one point, she scoffed at the notion that her identity was "common knowledge on the Georgetown cocktail circuit," as some have whispered in Washington. She said she has been on secret foreign missions within the last five years, and was undercover when her name appeared in a newspaper column in July 2003.
Plame also came prepared to settle scores with the administration, which carried out a campaign to discredit her husband -- former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV -- after he surfaced as a potent critic of the case for war.
