Analysis: Verdict puts focus on Cheney

[brettdale]

Analysis: Verdict puts focus on Cheney

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070306/ap_on_go_pr_wh/leak_trial_analysis


WASHINGTON - Campaigning in 2000,
George Bush promised he would swear on the Bible to restore honor and dignity to a sullied White House and give it "one heck of a scrubbing." The conviction of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby gave the White House a scrubbing — but not the one Bush had in mind.


The case laid bare the inner workings of a presidency under siege and the secretive world of Vice President
Dick Cheney.

It showed the lengths to which Cheney went in early summer 2003 to discredit administration critic Joseph Wilson. The former ambassador's assertions had cast doubt on the administration's justification for having taken the country to war in
Iraq. And the Libby case showed the president assisting Cheney in the leaked attacks on Wilson.

Libby, who was Cheney's chief of staff, was found guilty on Tuesday of four of five counts of obstructing justice, lying and perjury during an investigation into the administration's disclosure of the identity of undercover
CIA official
Valerie Plame, Wilson's wife.