WASHINGTON (AP) – I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby began making prison arrangements Thursday after a federal judge refused to delay the former White House aide’s 2 1/2-year sentence in the CIA leak case.

Despite the promise of an emergency appeal, the former chief of staff to Vice President Cheney met with probation officials to arrange for his surrender sometime in the next few weeks.

Federal District Judge Reggie B. Walton was never persuaded that Libby deserved to have his sentence delayed. The judge cited the “overwhelming” evidence that Libby lied to investigators and obstructed Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s inquiry into the 2003 leak of a CIA operative’s identity.

“Unless the Court of Appeals overturns my ruling, he will have to report,” Judge Walton said as Libby sat stoically and his wife wiped tears from her eyes.

Libby, the highest-ranking White House official to be sent to prison since the Iran-Contra affair, will soon receive a federal inmate number and a notice from the Bureau of Prisons telling him where and when to show up.

Judge Walton’s ruling is more than just a legal setback for Libby. It also means more questions for President Bush about whether he will pardon the former aide. Libby’s allies have called for a pardon, saying the loyal Republican was the casualty of a political investigation. A delay in the sentence would have meant more time for Mr. Bush to consider the request.

“Scooter Libby still has the right to appeal, and therefore the president will continue not to intervene in the judicial process,” White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Thursday. “The president feels terribly for Scooter, his wife and their young children, and all that they’re going through.”

Libby thanked federal marshals but did not take questions from reporters as he left the courthouse with his wife and lawyers. Mr. Fitzgerald also left without commenting.

The monthlong trial offered a rare glimpse into the White House in the early days of the Iraq war, when the Bush administration was on the defensive after invading American forces failed to turn up any weapons of mass destruction, the ostensible reason Bush and Cheney touted for the invasion.

Trial testimony showed Cheney was eager to beat back criticism of prewar intelligence, which said Iraq had such weapons and was seeking more of them. One of the most outspoken critics of that intelligence in mid-2003 was former Ambassador Joseph Wilson.

Amid a flurry of news coverage of that criticism, Bush administration officials leaked to reporters that Mr. Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, worked as an undercover analyst for CIA. That disclosure in a syndicated newspaper column touched off a leak investigation that brought senior White House officials, including Messrs. Bush and Cheney, in for questioning.

Libby was convicted of lying about how he learned Ms. Plame’s identity and whom he told. His lawyers argued Thursday that he had a good chance of persuading an appeals court that, when senior Justice Department officials recused themselves from the leak investigation, they gave Mr. Fitzgerald unconstitutional and unchecked authority.

Judge Walton never accepted Libby’s argument. He said the alternative was to put someone with White House ties in charge of an investigation into the highest levels of the Bush administration.

“If that’s going to be how we have to operate, our system is going to be in serious trouble with the average Joe on the street who thinks the system is unfair already,” Judge Walton said.

He also waved off a filing by 12 prominent law professors who said Libby should remain free pending appeal. Judge Walton described the document as “not something I would expect from a first-year in law school.”

In addition to that filing, Judge Walton also fielded several “angry, harassing, mean-spirited” letters and phone calls in the past week, including some “wishing bad things on me and my family,” Judge Walton said.

Libby’s newly formed appellate team – Lawrence S. Robbins and Mark Stancil – will seek an emergency order delaying the sentence. The Federal Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is not sitting right now, however, and attorneys worried about how fast the request would be heard by a special panel of the court.

The appeals court has several conservative jurists, but that doesn’t mean Libby will get a free pass. Judge Walton, for example, is a Republican judge and Mr. Bush appointee who handed down the stiff sentence despite more than 150 letters from military commanders and diplomats calling for leniency.

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Associated Press Writer Jennifer Kerr contributed to this story.