The American reporter jailed for refusing disclose information obtained in confidence has described her 85-day incarceration as demeaning and lonely, and defended her decision not to take an offer from her source to testify before a grand jury investigating the leak of a CIA operative's identity.
A lawyer for New York Timesreporter Judith Miller's source, vice president Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, says she was given permission a year ago to tell prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald about their conversations, and suggested Miller and her lawyers bear responsibility for her incarceration.
She was imprisoned on July 6th even though she never wrote an article about the matter but was unwilling to accept a blanket waiver of confidentiality from her source.
"I wasn't covering for anybody," she said. "Until I knew that that source genuinely wanted me to testify, and I heard that from him, I was willing to sit in jail."
Miller called the Alexandria, Virginia, detention centre where she was jailed "the most soulless place I had ever been." "It was demeaning. It was degrading. It was very lonely," she said in an interview with CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight.
Miller testified last Friday after receiving what she called a personal and voluntary waiver of confidentiality from her source, and an agreement with Mr Fitzgerald to narrow the scope of her testimony to her conversations with Mr Libby.
Miller's testimony appeared to clear the way for Mr Fitzgerald later this month to conclude his near two-year-old inquiry into who leaked CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity and whether anyone broke the law in doing so.
Ms Plame's diplomat husband, Joseph Wilson, has said the administration leaked her name, damaging her ability to work undercover, in order to get back at him for criticising Mr Bush's Iraq policy.
Some lawyers involved in the case said Mr Fitzgerald's agreement to limit the scope of Miller's testimony to Mr Libby - a proposal he rejected a year earlier - suggested that Mr Libby had become his main focus.
In addition to Mr Libby, Mr Fitzgerald's investigation has ensnared President George W Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove. The White House had long maintained that Mr Rove and Mr Libby had nothing to do with the leak but reporters have since named them as sources.
After initially promising to fire anyone found to have leaked information in the case, Mr Bush in July offered a more qualified pledge: "If someone committed a crime they will no longer work in my administration."
At a news conference yesterday, Mr Bush would not say whether he would remove administration officials if they are indicted by the grand jury.