By WILL LESTER, Associated Press Writer

The recent indictment of Vice President Cheney’s top aide has struck a nerve with the American public. Four in five, 79 percent, said the indictment of former Cheney aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby on perjury and other charges is important to the nation, according to a poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. Pew noted that in September 1998, 65 percent said President Clinton’s lies under oath were important. Clinton was impeached over his handling of an affair with Monica Lewinsky, but was acquitted by the Senate on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice.

Libby was charged with lying to investigators and a grand jury during an investigation of his role in revealing the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame, wife of an outspoken critic of the war against Iraq.

Most Americans, six in 10, say they do not think the news about Libby’s indictment has gotten too much coverage.

The concerns about Libby’s case come at a time that a growing number of people, 43 percent, now say U.S. and British leaders were mostly lying when they claimed before the Iraq war that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, while an equal number said they were misinformed by bad intelligence.

That’s up from 31 percent who felt in February 2004 that the leaders were lying, while 49 percent said they got bad intelligence.

Two-thirds of Democrats say U.S. and British political leaders were lying about weapons of mass destruction and half of independents feel that way. Only one in 10 Republicans said that was the case.

The telephone poll of 1,201 adults was taken Nov. 3-6 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

___