in the State Department. Actually, it is, in part, exactly that. It strikes at the neo-cons and it strikes at Israel, which has staked much on firing the US to attack Iran.

"It's no secret," snarled the National Review, "that careerists at the CIA and State have been less interested in implementing the President's policies on Iran, Iraq, and North Korea than in sabotaging them at every opportunity."

The Wall Street Journal's nutty editorial page went further, fingering "hyper-partisan anti-Bush officials" including Tom Fingar, formerly of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, as drafters of the treacherous NIE.

Humiliated by the NIE, which flatly contradicted all his recent claims about Iran's rush for nuclear weapons, Bush flailed away in his Tuesday press conference, eliciting contempt as he claimed he'd only just become aware of the NIE. "If that's true," Senator Joe Biden declared, "he has the most incompetent staff in modern American history and he's one of the most incompetent