White House braced as inquiry into leaked CIA name ends

US VICE President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff could face obstruction and other charges over exchanges with a New York Times reporter people close to the case said yesterday.

Prosecutors are winding up an investigation of who leaked a covert CIA operative’s identity.

President George W Bush’s top political adviser, Karl Rove, and Mr Cheney’s chief of staff, Lewis Libby, were among the possible targets of the probe. Legal sources said special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was likely to decide this week whether or not to bring indictments.

While Mr Fitzgerald could try to charge administration officials with knowingly revealing the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame, several lawyers in the case said he was more likely to seek charges for conspiracy and easier-to-prove crimes such as disclosing classified information, making false statements, obstruction and perjury.

He could also decide that no crime was committed.

Ms Plame’s diplomat husband, Joseph Wilson, says White House officials outed his wife, damaging her ability to work undercover, to discredit him for accusing the administration of twisting intelligence to justify the Iraq war in a New York Times opinion piece on July 6, 2003.

“Fitzgerald is putting together a big case, and he’s looking for little pieces of a puzzle,” Robert Bennett, the lead attorney for New York Times reporter Judith Miller, said.

Miller spent 85 days in jail before agreeing to testify and published an account of her grand jury testimony in yesterday’s New York Times.

Legal sources said Mr Rove could be vulnerable to a perjury charge for not initially telling the grand jury that he talked to Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper about Ms Plame.

Mr Rove’s attorney, Robert Luskin, brushed aside speculation about Fitzgerald’s intentions, saying, “Rove has at all times strived to be as truthful as possible and voluntarily brought the Cooper conversation to Fitzgerald’s attention.”

White House officials were bracing for the possibility of bad news from the inquiry. It seemed clear that Mr Rove would have to step down, at least temporarily, if indicted.