Valerie Plame to Resign CIA Post

Valerie Plame, the glamorous secret agent at the heart of the CIA leak scandal, is quitting the agency to become a full-time mom.

Plame, 42, wife of Iraq war critic Joseph Wilson, will retire next month from the CIA after 20 years tracking proliferators of weapons of mass destruction, CIA officials confirmed.

It was exposure of Plame's identity as a CIA operative in a 2003 column by Robert Novak that lead to the massive leak probe that resulted in last month's indictment of Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief-of-staff.

Friends and colleagues told The Post the leak scandal forced Plame, mother of 5-year-old twins, to leave the CIA early because the exposure effectively ended her spying career.

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