I can't believe someone raised this from the dead.
Here's the problem. The guy most responsible for outing Valerie Plame is Joe Wilson.
He made an outrageous claim. That he was sent to investigate the Niger Uranium Claim and discovered it was false.
Any sensible person would ask at that point, "Who the hell is Joe Wilson and why would anyone send him to investigate Niger Uraninium."
The thing was, in Feburary 2003, Wilson authored an Op-Ed in the LA Times where he not only conceded that Saddam had WMD's, but that we shouldn't invade because he might use them. This certainly didn't jive with his story that he knew saddam didn't have WMD's and he told people as much.
So at that point, any reporter worth his salt would have asked the question, "Why the hell would you send someone like that on an important mission?"
And the answer was, "Because his wife works at the CIA in the Anti-Poliferation Division."
Now, we can talk about what this was really about. This was about bureaucratic ass covering. The WH, CIA, DoD, NSA had all insisted up and down Saddam had WMD's, but they couldn't find them. So let the finger pointing begin.