As a covert officer in the CIA’s Counter-Proliferation Division, Valerie’s work involved identifying the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq before the United States declared war. Her husband, diplomat Ambassador Joe Wilson was hired by the CIA for a fact-finding mission as part of the investigation. When the Bush administration ignored his findings and used them to support the call to war, Joe contradicted the White House in The New York Times, igniting a firestorm of controversy.