In tapes, Libby tells of plan to leak secrets (Greg Miller)

  Jurors hear new details of efforts to discredit Wilson

  Greg Miller -- Los Angeles Times

  Feb. 7, 2007 -- Former White House official Lewis "Scooter" Libby told a grand jury in 2004 that Vice President Dick Cheney was upset by an ambassador's public questioning of the Iraq war and that President Bush, Cheney and Libby were involved in a plan -- kept secret from other senior White House officials -- to leak previously classified intelligence to counter the criticism.

  As Libby sat silently in the courtroom, jurors heard his voice describe how he was instructed to leak intelligence secrets to selected reporters, even as other White House officials were expressing concern over the leaks and debating whether the administration should formally declassify intelligence reports on Iraq to combat criticism of the case for war.

  At one point, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald can be heard on the tapes expressing disbelief that Libby would take part in those meetings without disclosing that the president had effectively already declassified key portions of one of the main prewar pieces of intelligence on Iraq, a national intelligence estimate on the nation's alleged banned weapons programs.

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