Former Cheney aide guilty in leak case (2nd Roundup)

Mar 6, 2007, 22:03 GMT

Washington - The former top aide to US Vice President Dick Cheney was found guilty Tuesday of perjury, obstruction and lying to investigators about the leak of a CIA operative's identity during the Bush administration's battle to justify the Iraq war.

I Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, Cheney's former chief of staff, could face up to 25 years in prison if the verdict by an 11-member grand jury in Washington stands, Cable News Network (CNN) reported. However, any actual jail term would likely be shorter.

At issue was whether Libby, 56, lied to a grand jury and to FBI investigators probing whether US administration officials intentionally leaked the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame to retaliate for her husband's criticism of the Iraq war.

Libby, who denies wrongdoing, was convicted on four of five counts. His lawyers said they would seek a new trial or, failing that, appeal the US district court's verdict. No sentencing date was immediately announced.

Cheney, in a written statement, said he was 'very disappointed' with the verdict but would have no comment on the case's merits because the proceedings were continuing.

US President George W Bush was saddened for Libby and his family, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters. She insisted the ruling did not cast a cloud over Cheney, a driving force behind the 2003 US invasion of Iraq.

Harry Reid, the Democratic Party leader in the US Senate, said the case illustrated the administration's attempts to skew prewar intelligence and urged Bush not to grant Libby a pardon.

Plame's husband, former US diplomat Joseph Wilson, alleges that the White House intentionally blew his wife's CIA cover.

Her name appeared in print on July 14, 2003, shortly after Wilson wrote a newspaper article discounting one of the US administration's war arguments - that Saddam Hussein's Iraq sought to obtain yellowcake uranium from the African country of Niger.

The jury reached a decision on the 10th day of deliberations after a trial that included testimony from former Bush administration officials and some of America's best-known journalists.

Neither Cheney nor Libby testified at the trial. But several witnesses undermined Libby's argument that he heard about Plame's CIA employment from journalists, not from inside the administration.

Juror Denis Collins said 'there was a tremendous amount of sympathy for Mr Libby on the jury' because he appeared to be taking the fall for Cheney, his former boss.

'The belief of the jury was that he was tasked by the vice president to go and talk to reporters,' though jurors never discussed 'whether Cheney would have told him what exactly to say,' Collins said outside the Washington courthouse.

Exposing the identity of a CIA official can be a crime. Libby was not charged with leaking Plame's name to the media but with hampering the probe into who did. He resigned in 2005 after being indicted.

'Our point was that Mr Libby did not tell the truth to the system,' lead prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said after the verdict.

Last summer, Plame and Wilson filed a lawsuit against Cheney and top Bush aide Karl Rove of conspiring to ruin the couple's careers. Plame and Wilson were seeking unspecified compensation.