'Scooter' Libby was key advocate of war

US: Lewis "Scooter" Libby, until last night US vice-president Dick Cheney's right-hand man, has been known to hesitate on a …

US: Lewis "Scooter" Libby, until last night US vice-president Dick Cheney's right-hand man, has been known to hesitate on a snowy precipice before skiing down a risky run. But not for long.

"He's a risk-taker, but he's not impulsive," says Jackson Hogen, a friend since school. "He's a calculated risk-taker."

Whether it's taking to the slopes of Wyoming or drafting bold national security strategy, biking the steep hills of Colorado or making the case for war in Iraq, Libby is known for his ability to analyse complex and sometimes treacherous situations - and then throwing himself head-on into solving them, say friends and colleagues.

Now Libby, the top aide to the most powerful US vice-president in history and one of the architects of President Bush's policies, is out, courtesy of a criminal investigation into whether administration officials unmasked a covert CIA agent.

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The 22-month probe shone a spotlight on Libby, who has remained determinedly below the radar during a decade of public service in three Republican administrations. During those years, he has been instrumental in crafting the audacious post-Cold War defence posture that is the basis for Bush's foreign policy, a leading advocate for the Iraq war and a trusted adviser to Cheney and Bush.

His powerful role at the White House, especially on matters of war, seems incongruous with his name - bestowed by a father who marvelled at how quickly he scooted across his crib.

Libby, whose given name is Irve Lewis Libby jnr, has said he relishes the contrast: "There is a tendency in Washington for people to take themselves a little too seriously, and it's pretty hard to take yourself seriously when your name is Scooter," he told the New York Times in 2002.

Libby allowed the world a brief glimpse of his lighter side in 2002, when a novel he began in college, Promoting The Apprentice, a romantic thriller set in rural Japan in the early 1900s, was published in 1996. Libby acknowledged he sometimes dreams of giving up his high-power post to devote his life to literature.

The portrait stands in stark opposition to the one that's emerged of Libby in recent months, as information has trickled out about his possible role in the unmasking of Valerie Plame, a covert CIA agent and wife of former ambassador Joseph C Wilson, an administration critic who accused Bush of twisting intelligence to justify going to war in Iraq.

At least two journalists spoke with Libby about Plame's identity - though not her name or covert status - in 2003, they have told the grand jury.

Libby was born on August 22nd, 1950, in New Haven, Connecticut, and raised in Florida.

He went to prep school at Andover and attended Yale. It was there he met Paul Wolfowitz, a professor of political science who helped shape his foreign policy views.

After law school at Columbia University and a stint at a Philadelphia firm, Libby accepted Wolfowitz's offer of a State Department job in Reagan's administration.

He returned to private law practice in 1985 but was soon drawn into public service again by Wolfowitz, who tapped him in 1990 for a Pentagon post.

Libby earned Cheney's respect during those years, when he joined a cadre of conservatives who crafted a sweeping defence policy that advocated the use of US military power to prevent the emergence of a new rival and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and to promote democracy around the world. To implement this vision, it argued, the United States must be willing to act unilaterally.

His strong arguments endeared Libby to Cheney and would be the basis for an extraordinarily close partnership between the vice-president and his top aide.

His work in the Pentagon under the first President Bush also earned Libby strong allies in defence and foreign policy circles that have amplified his power during the second Bush presidency.

Above all, Libby throws himself full throttle into anything he pursues.

At the top of a daunting ski run, "Scooter will look at me and say, 'What, are you kidding? Are you trying kill me?" Hogen said.

"As long as I explain how he's going to get through it, and he can follow the logic, he'll take a deep breath and say, 'Well, OK." - (LA Times-Washington Post service)