The White House was today left reeling from the indictment of one of its most senior aides, Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby, charged with lying to the FBI and a grand jury under oath.

LEWIS “Scooter” Libby quietly rose to the highest corridors of power in Washington only to be brought down in a scandal that thrust him into the limelight that he so explicitly avoided.

After nearly three months behind bars, New York Times reporter Judith Miller was released after she agreed to testify about the Bush administration’s disclosure of a covert CIA officer’s identity.

A US judge has sent a journalist to prison for refusing to divulge her source in the investigation of the leak of an undercover CIA officer’s name.

Matthew Cooper, Birmingham