Washington: In a damaging blow to a beleaguered White House, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis Libby, was indicted on Friday for obstructing justice, perjury and lying after a two-year investigation into the leak of a covert CIA operative's identity.
Libby resigned his White House post and faces up to 30 years in prison in a case that has put a spotlight on how the administration sold the nation on the war in Iraq and countered its critics.
Cheney said Libby would "fight the charges brought against him."
Libby predicted: "At the end of this process I will be completely and totally exonerated."
President George W Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, was not indicted along with Libby, but special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald has made clear to Rove he remains under investigation and in legal jeopardy, lawyers said.
"It's not over," Fitzgerald told a news conference.
Bush said the investigation and legal proceedings were "serious and now the process moves into a new phase."
Reggie Walton, the federal judge chosen to handle Libby's case, was appointed by Bush to the court.
An arraignment for Libby to enter a plea has yet to be scheduled.
Libby's indictment raises the specter of a politically damaging criminal trial.
Lawyers involved in the leak case said Cheney himself and other top White House officials can expect to be called as witnesses.
The White House is already reeling over the slow response to Hurricane Katrina, growing opposition to the Iraq war and the withdrawal of Bush's nominee for the US Supreme Court, Harriet Miers, under fire from Bush's conservative base.
Despite initial denials, both Rove and Libby spoke to reporters in June and July 2003 about the CIA operative, Valerie Plame.
Libby, who played a major behind-the-scenes role in building the case for the Iraq war, was accused in the five-count indictment of making false statements about how and when he learned and disclosed to reporters classified information about Plame.
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