Former White House aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby was convicted on Tuesday of lying and obstructing an investigation into who blew the cover of a CIA analyst in an effort to deflect criticism of the Iraq war.

The former chief of staff to U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney sat expressionless as the verdict was read in a packed Washington courtroom. He was acquitted of just one of

five counts in the probe and faces a maximum of 25 years in prison.
Defence attorney Theodore Wells said Libby would seek a new trial, and if denied, would appeal the conviction.

"We have every confidence that ultimately Mr. Libby will be vindicated," Wells said. Sentencing was set for June 5. Libby's wife wept in the courtroom.

The overwhelming verdict came on the 10th day of deliberations and was hailed by some Democrats as an appropriate rejection of the Bush's administration's case for the Iraq war.

The trial stemmed from a probe into who leaked the identity of Valerie Plame in 2003 after her husband accused the Bush administration of manipulating intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to build its case for war.

Critics of President George W. Bush had seized on the Libby trial as showing the heavy-handed way the White House operated.

"The testimony unmistakably revealed -- at the highest levels of the Bush administration -- a callous disregard in handling sensitive national security information and a disposition to smear critics of the war in Iraq," said House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

"It's about time someone in the Bush administration has been held accountable for the campaign to manipulate intelligence and discredit war critics," added Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid.

Libby was found guilty of the most serious of the charges, obstructing the investigation into the Plame leak. The jury of seven women and four men also determined he lied to the FBI and committed perjury in testimony before a grand jury.

BUSH 'SADDENED' FOR LIBBY

Bush was in the Oval Office when he was told the jury had reached a verdict and watched the decision being read on television, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.

"He said that he respected the jury's verdict. He said he was saddened for Scooter Libby and his family," Perino said, declining to comment further and refusing to speculate on the possibility of a presidential pardon.

Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said the CIA leak investigation was now inactive.

"I do not expect to file any additional charges," he said. "We're all going back to our day jobs."

Libby's attorneys argued during the trial that he could not accurately recall conversations about Plame when he was interviewed months later.

"We believe, as we said at the time of his indictment, that he is totally innocent, totally innocent and that he did not do anything wrong," Wells said.

Nobody was charged with intentionally identifying Plame, the wife of former ambassador Joseph Wilson.

The CIA leak case erupted after Wilson accused the administration of leaking his wife's identity to punish him for writing in the New York Times that the administration twisted intelligence about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

Prosecutors called a parade of government officials to bolster their charge that Libby had lied about his conversation with NBC Washington bureau chief Tim Russert. The jury found Libby guilty on both charges involving Russert.

Fewer witnesses could back up the charge that Libby also lied about a conversation he had with Time Magazine's Matt Cooper.

One juror, Denis Collins, said many jurors felt that other officials who leaked Plame's name to reporters, such as senior White House aide Karl Rove, should have been on trial instead.

"There was a tremendous amount of sympathy for Mr. Libby on the jury," Collins told reporters. "It was said a number of times, "What are we doing with this guy here? Where's Rove, where's -- you know, where are these other guys?"

The jury found Libby guilty of perjury during his grand jury testimony, which was recorded and played back during the trial, but acquitted him of making false statements during an FBI interview that was not recorded.

"The results are actually sad," Fitzgerald said. "It's sad that we had a high level official, a person who worked in the office of the vice president, obstructed justice and lied under oath. We wish that had not happened, but it did."