WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Valerie Plame, the former CIA officer who was ousted as a spy by the George W. Bush administration during the Iraq War in 2003, is running for Congress to represent northern New Mexico as a Democrat.
Plame filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission for the House seat in New Mexico's 3rd Congressional District, which is being vacated by Democratic Rep. Ben Ray Lujan.
'My career in the CIA was cut short by partisan politics, but I'm not done serving our country,' Plame said in a statement announcing her candidacy.
'We need more people in Congress with the courage to stand up for what's right,' according to her.
Plame, who is a proponent of nuclear proliferation and women's role in intelligence, vowed to work hard defending her fellow New Mexicans in Washington.
Plame said on her campaign website that she will work for lowering healthcare and prescription drug costs, protecting clean air and water, ensuring voting and equal rights for all, and for combating gun violence and crime.
Serving as a covert operations officer for the CIA, Valerie Plame kept her occupation and identity a secret, even from her closest family and friends.
Her husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, had questioned the Bush administration's primary rationale for the Iraq war.
Shortly after that a conservative columnist, at the direction of senior White House officials, leaked her true identity.
It ended her covert career and set off a political scandal that rocked the White House.
Plame, who is the author of a best-selling memoir, had relocated to New Mexico after leaving the CIA in 2005.
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