Libby Given 30 Months in Prison

Former senior Bush administration aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby was sentenced to two and a half years in prison today after being found guilty earlier this year of perjury.

Libby, 56, who was chief of staff to the vice-president, Dick Cheney, was found guilty in relation to the administration's outing of the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame in a row over the Iraq war.

He was convicted in March of lying and obstructing an investigation into the leaking of Ms Plame's identity in 2003 and is the highest-ranking US official convicted of a crime since the Iran-Contra affair in the mid-1980s.

Today US district court judge Reggie Walton told a packed courtroom in Washington that the evidence overwhelmingly proved Libby's guilt.

As Libby watched calmly, Judge Walton told him: "People who occupy these types of positions, where they have the welfare and security of nation in their hands, have a special obligation to not do anything that might create a problem."

Judge Walton also fined Libby $250,000 (£125,000) and placed him on probation for two years after his release from prison.

Prosecutors had been seeking a three-year jail term in part because of an apparent lack of remorse; defence lawyers had appealed for clemency because of his lengthy career in public service.

The judge did not immediately address whether Libby could remain free while he sought appeal - which could be a lengthy process. Libby remained free pending a hearing set for next week on his plans to appeal.

Judge Walton said he saw no reason to let Libby remain free during appeals process but that he would accept written arguments on the issue ahead of making a ruling.

It is questionable how much of his sentence Libby will serve even if his appeals are unsuccessful. Many political experts believing that, should all appeals fail, President George Bush would use his powers to grant a pardon to his loyal follower.

However, the precedents for a presidential pardon are that they are made as a president is leaving office; Mr Bush leaves the White House in January 2009.

Being put in a position where he had to use the presidential pardon would be a humiliating exercise for Mr Bush. Libby was one of the leading advocates of the neoconservative revolution and a leading player at the White House.

Defence lawyer Theodore Wells said. "It is a tragic fall, a tragic fall. He has fallen from public grace."

The judge received letters from dozens of Libby's supporters, including former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, former secretary of state Henry Kissinger, and John Bolton, former US ambassador to the UN.

Mr Rumsfeld wrote: "My hope and prayer is that his outstanding record, his many contributions to our country and his value as a citizen will be considered carefully."

Before sentencing today, in brief remarks to the judge, Libby said: "It is respectfully my hope that the court will consider, along with the jury verdict, my whole life."

However, Judge Walton said that while Libby's government service was admirable, it made his crime especially serious.

Ms Plame's identity was leaked to reporters after her husband, Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador, who had accused the Bush administration of manipulating intelligence to build its case for the Iraq war. Mr Wilson wrote an article in the New York Times dismissing as false claims that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger to build a nuclear bomb.

Disclosing the identity of CIA agents is a criminal offense and the FBI and a grand jury conducted investigations. In the speculation about who might have leaked Ms Plame's identity, Libby's name regularly came up, though he steadfastly protested his innocence.

Under oath, Libby told the investigators looking into the leak of Valerie Plame's identity that he learned her identity from a reporter, Tim Russert. The television presenter denied this. Another reporter, Judith Miller, formerly of the New York Times, spent three months in jail for refusing to disclose her sources for Ms Plame's identity. She was freed after Libby allowed her to name him as the source.

During his trial, prosecutors said Libby had lied. The defence claimed he had suffered a memory lapse.

Today there was no immediate comment from Ms Plame following the sentencing. Mr Cheney's office also was quiet, as was the White House.