Analysis: Verdict Puts Focus on Cheney

Vice President Dick Cheney leaves the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, March 6, 2007, after attending the Republican's weekly party luncheon. (AP Photo/Lauren Victoria Burke) (Lauren Victoria Burke - AP)

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.

The verdict "does great damage to the Bush administration," said Paul C. Light, professor of public service at New York University. "It undermines the president's pledge of ethical conduct. But the most serious consequence is that it will raise questions about Cheney's durability in office. It may be time for Cheney to submit his resignation."

But don't count on it. Bush in the past has repeatedly come to the defense of his vice president.

The trial, which included a month of testimony, is also relevant as the U.S. seeks to build a case that Iran is providing sophisticated munitions to Shiite insurgents in Iraq who are using them against U.S. troops. Administration critics have suggested the administration is trying to lay the groundwork for isolating or even attacking Iran _ using flawed intelligence, like in Iraq.

Wilson, a retired career diplomat, had accused the administration of manipulating intelligence to build its case to invade Iraq.

The trial leaves a trail of unanswered questions leading to the doorsteps of Bush and Cheney.

Testimony and evidence did not clear up whether they directed the leaking of Plame's identity to the news media.

But the trial did show Bush declassified prewar intelligence that Libby leaked to New York Times reporter Judith Miller, a plan carried out in such secrecy that no one in the government except Bush, Cheney and Libby even knew about it.

Testimony showed the vice president was aware early on that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and told Libby about it. Cheney even scribbled a note to himself a week before Wilson's wife was exposed asking whether she had sent her husband on the CIA mission to Africa that triggered the controversy.