Washington ? Campaigning in 2000, George Bush promised he would swear on the Bible to restore honor and dignity to a sullied White House and give it “one heck of scrubbing.” The conviction of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby gave the White House a scrubbing – but not the one Bush had in mind.

The case laid bare the inner workings of a presidency under siege and the secretive world of Vice President Dick Cheney.

It showed the lengths to which Cheney went in early summer 2003 to discredit administration critic Joseph Wilson. The former ambassador’s assertions had cast doubt on the administration’s justification for having taken the country to war in Iraq. And the Libby case showed the president assisting Cheney in the leaked attacks on Wilson.

Libby, who was Cheney’s chief of staff, was found guilty on Tuesday of four of five counts of obstructing justice, lying and perjury during an investigation into the administration’s disclosure of the identity of undercover CIA official Valerie Plame, Wilson’s wife.

The verdict “does great damage to the Bush administration,” said Paul C. Light, professor of public service at New York University. “It undermines the president’s pledge of ethical conduct. But the most serious consequence is that it will raise questions about Cheney’s durability in office. It may be time for Cheney to submit his resignation.”

But don’t count on it. Bush in the past has repeatedly come to the defense of his vice president.

The trial, which included a month of testimony, is also relevant as the U.S. seeks to build a case that Iran is providing sophisticated munitions to Shiite insurgents in Iraq who are using them against U.S. troops. Administration critics have suggested the administration is trying to lay the groundwork for isolating or even attacking Iran – using flawed intelligence, like in Iraq.

Wilson, a retired career diplomat, had accused the administration of manipulating intelligence to build its case to invade Iraq.

The trial leaves a trail of unanswered questions leading to the doorsteps of Bush and Cheney.

Testimony and evidence did not clear up whether they directed the leaking of Plame’s identity to the news media.

But the trial did show Bush declassified prewar intelligence that Libby leaked to New York Times reporter Judith Miller, a plan carried out in such secrecy that no one else in the government even knew about it.

Testimony showed the vice president was aware early on that Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA and told Libby about it. Cheney even scribbled a note to himself a week before Wilson’s wife was exposed asking whether she had sent her husband on the CIA mission to Africa that triggered the controversy.

Cheney also directed Libby to speak with selected reporters to counter Wilson’s accusations. Cheney developed talking points on the matter for the White House press office. He helped draft a statement by then-CIA Director George Tenet. And he moved to declassify some intelligence material to bolster the case against Wilson

Former White House aide I. Lewis Scooter Libby, left, turns to his attorney Theodore B. Wells, right, and wife Harriet Grant outside federal court Tuesday in Washington after the jury reached its verdict in Libby's perjury trial.

Lanny Davis, a lawyer who worked in the Clinton White House during several investigations, said Tuesday that, while Libby was the defendant, “it was Vice President Cheney who was on trial today and who has the responsibility for what Libby did. The vice president has a personal and moral responsibility to take responsibility for what Mr. Libby did at his instruction – and to apologize to Valerie Plame.”

Prosecutors said Libby concocted a story to avoid losing his job for disclosing classified information to reporters without authorization. Libby’s attorneys said any errors resulted from memory flaws.

The White House refused to comment on the possibility that Bush would pardon Libby. He was the only one charged in the case, and he was not charged with deliberately disclosing Plame’s identity, which can be a federal crime, but with lying to investivagators and a grand jury. Testimony showed there were other leakers, including adviser Karl Rove, former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer and former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.

The White House has never corrected the denials it issued in the fall of 2003 saying neither Rove nor Libby was involved in the leak of Plame’s CIA identity. Political observers doubt any correction will be made.

“What’s really focused people’s attention is the loss of American troops in Iraq and it’s allowed Bush, Cheney and Rove – once he wasn’t indicted – to kind of be pushed off the radar screen” regarding the Plame affair, said presidential historian Robert Dallek.

Democrats used the verdicts to attack Cheney. “Lewis Libby has been convicted of perjury, but his trial revealed deeper truths about Vice President Cheney’s role in this sordid affair. Now President Bush must pledge not to pardon Libby for his criminal conduct,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino would not characterize the verdict as embarrassing for the White House. “I think that we have been able to continue on in moving forward on all sorts of different fronts,” she said.

It’s not the administration’s first ethics-related conviction. Two former Bush administration officials have been convicted in investigations related to jailed Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Last June, a former White House aide, David H. Safavian, was convicted of lying to government investigators about his ties to Abramoff. He faces an 180-month prison sentence.