Testimony has indicated that Cheney was dictating talking points to rebut Wilson while the vice president's public relations handlers weighed strategic leaks to friendly reporters, among other moves.
Libby was the apparent lieutenant in the counteroffensive, and he seemed to get his marching orders in the June 12 phone conversation with Cheney that included the reference to Plame.
According to the notes from that conversation, Wilson was saying that Cheney's office had expressed strong interest in the notion that Iraq had sought weapons-grade uranium in Africa. Libby jotted down in the margin the orders he received from Cheney to "get agency to answer that."
Libby subsequently made a number of inquiries to senior State Department and CIA officials about Wilson and an agency-sponsored fact-finding trip he'd made to Africa in 2002.
The top CIA expert on Iraq, Robert Grenier, testified that Libby had him pulled out of a meeting with then-CIA Director George J. Tenet to discuss the issue in a phone call.
Former State Department Undersecretary Marc Grossman said he also felt a sense of urgency when Libby called him, after which he promptly commissioned an internal intelligence analysis.
Grenier and Grossman each testified that he promptly reported back to Libby with information about Wilson and the trip -- and the fact that Wilson's wife was a CIA employee.
After Wilson went public with his criticism in a July 6 op-ed in the New York Times, saying he'd found no evidence of Iraq seeking nuclear material in Niger, Libby promptly passed on information about Wilson's wife, prosecutors allege.
Then-White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer has testified that the day after the op-ed appeared, Libby offered the information to him "on the q.t." over lunch at the White House mess. Miller testified that Libby talked about Wilson's wife the next day, a Tuesday.
Libby told the grand jury that he did not learn Plame's identity until the following Thursday, July 10, in a conversation with journalist Tim Russert, the moderator of the NBC's "Meet the Press." Libby has said he was surprised to hear the information from the newsman.
Russert, who is scheduled to testify for the government today or Tuesday, has denied that he gave Plame's identity to Libby.
Fitzgerald, in his opening statement to the jury last month, commented on the apparent contradiction. "You can't learn something startling on Thursday that you are giving out on Monday and Tuesday," he said.
