Comparing Valerie Plame, an analyst working at a computer in Washington, DC, to a Navy Seal on a mission in Pakistan or Afghanistan, is quite a stretch. Too much for me.
The point is that Valerie Palme was a CIA agent, in addition to being the US Ambassador to Niger's wife.
Therefore. the disclosure apart from being a Federal Offence, also compromised the US, in that it could be taken that the Wives of Ambassadors could be CIA agents and made the US appear to be as crooked in operation and deceit as what was said of the USSR diplomats. In short, untrustworthy.
One does not give the task to find out about secret shipment of Uranium from one country to another country to a computer analyst. That is very obvious.
On October 28, 2005, the Office of Special Counsel issued a press release regarding Libby's indictment. The following is stated regarding Plame:
Prior to July 14, 2003, Valerie Wilson's employment status was classified. Prior to that date, her affiliation with the CIA was not common knowledge outside the intelligence community. Disclosure of classified information about an individual's employment by the CIA has the potential to damage the national security in ways that range from preventing that individual's future use in a covert capacity, to compromising intelligence-gathering methods and operations, and endangering the safety of CIA employees and those who deal with them, the indictment states.Mark Lowenthal, who retired from a senior management position at the CIA in March 2005 reportedly told Linzer: "You can only speculate that if she had foreign contacts, those contacts might be nervous and their relationships with her put them at risk. It also makes it harder for other CIA officers to recruit sources."
Another intelligence official who spoke anonymously to Linzer cited the CIA's interest in protecting the agency and its work:
"You'll never get a straight answer [from the Agency] about how valuable she was or how valuable her sources were."
On September 6, 2006, David Corn published an article for The Nation titled "What Valerie Plame Really Did at the CIA", reporting that Plame was placed in charge of the operations group within the Joint Task Force on Iraq in the spring of 2001 and that, "when the Novak column ran," in July 2003: "Valerie Wilson was in the process of changing her clandestine status from NOC to official cover, as she prepared for a new job in personnel management. Her aim, she told colleagues, was to put in time as an administrator — to rise up a notch or two — and then return to secret operations. But with her cover blown, she could never be undercover again
If Palme was a mere computer analyst then when the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) attempted to have the transcript of Cheney's interview with the special prosecutor released, the release would not be opposed by the Bush administration, which opposed it. That Cheney was the worst type of a crook is known to the whole world and that Bush was just a fall guy.
If the Valerie was just a technician, then Lewis "Scooter" Libby would not have been sentenced to 30 months in prison, a fine of US$250,000, and two years of probation (supervised release) after the expiration of his prison term.
It is Libby's good luck that Bush On July 2, 2007, President Bush commuted the sentence. No pardon was given, even though Cheney pressed for it many a time with Bush, and the fine and probation, as well as the felony conviction remain.
(The information given is from various sources)
On the issue of which is more important to national security a Navy Seal or a CIA agent, I take it both are important and both play a different role to ensure National Security.