'Scooter' Libby Gets 2 1/2 Years in Jail for Perjury

Lewis "Scooter" Libby, a former leading official in the Bush administration, was sentenced to two and a half years in jail yesterday for perjury and obstruction of justice in relation to the Iraq war.

Libby, 56, was chief of staff and national security adviser to the vice-president, Dick Cheney, one of the leading advocates of the invasion. He is the highest-level US official to be sentenced to jail since the Iran-Contra affair 20 years ago.

In a statement issued by the White House, Mr Cheney stood by his former employee as "a man of the highest intellect, judgment and personal integrity".

The verdict could further damage the already diminished reputation of the Bush administration, especially if George Bush pardons him.

Ominously for Libby, the judge, Reggie Walton, indicated he was not going to allow the defence to string out an appeal to keep him from jail. Judge Walton is to rule next week on whether Libby should be in jail while awaiting an appeal hearing. Libby could be swapping a business suit for orangeoveralls within 45-60 days.

The White House spokesman, Dana Perino, said Mr Bush had no plans for the pardon being demanded by the right.

Libby heard the verdict in the district court in Washington. Judge Walton told him he had to balance Libby's record of service to the country against a need to punish those who lied under oath. He said people occupying high office had a duty not to step over the line."It's important that we expect and demand a lot from people who put themselves in those positions," he said. "Mr Libby failed to meet that bar."

Minutes earlier, Libby took the stand for the first time to plead for mercy: "It is respectfully my hope that the court will consider along with the jury verdict my whole life." Libby was found guilty by a jury in March but sentencing was delayed until yesterday. Judge Walton, who has a tough reputation imposed the jail sentence, a $250,000 (£125,400) fine and, as a further humiliation, two years' probation at the end of the prison sentence.

Libby lied to a federal investigation into the outing of a former CIA agent, Valerie Plame, an apparent act of revenge by the Bush administration against her husband and anti-war critic Joe Wilson.

Libby sat quietly throughout more than two hours of legal argument before sentence. He had his back to the press and public when the sentence was announced but those round him said he showed no emotion. Calling for leniency - probation rather than prison - his lawyer, Theodore Wells, called him an exceptional public servant.

He read out excerpts from letters by more than 100 figures, including Paul Wolfowitz, another neo-conservative, who was forced out of the World Bank presidency last month. They portrayed him as playing a vital role in events from the end of the cold war and nuclear arms reduction to Ukrainian independence. Mr Wells said: "It is a tragic fall, a tragic fall."

The special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, recommended a three-year sentence. "We need to make the statement that the truth matters ever so much," he said.

Libby was not responsible for leaking Ms Plame's identity. The perjury and obstruction of justice relate to a cover-up. Ms Plame's husband, a former US ambassador, went to Niger in the run-up to the war to check claims that Iraq had been seeking uranium to build a nuclear bomb. He concluded it was not true and wrote an article about it in 2003 for the New York Times, angering the White House, which had used the claim as a basis for the invasion of Iraq.