Boos for Bush

And Peter Graff writes for Reuters: "The United States confirmed on Sunday that U.S. special forces units were operating alongside Iraqi government troops in Basra, where the government is battling militants loyal to Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr."

Charles J. Hanley of the Associated Press puts Bush administration confidence in context: "Iraq's new army is 'developing steadily,' with 'strong Iraqi leaders out front,' the chief U.S. trainer said. That was three-plus years ago, and the trainer was David H. Petraeus, now the top American commander in Iraq. Some of those Iraqi officials at the time were busy embezzling more than $1 billion allotted for the new army's weapons, according to investigators."

Iran Watch

When does the CIA director not believe his own agency's conclusions? Apparently, when it's not politically expedient.

Greg Miller writes in the Los Angeles Times: "CIA Director Michael V. Hayden said Sunday that he believes Iran is still pursuing a nuclear bomb, even though the U.S. intelligence community, including his own agency, reached a consensus judgment last year that the Islamic Republic had halted its nuclear weapons work in 2003.

"Asked on NBC's 'Meet the Press' whether he thought Iran was trying to develop a nuclear weapon, Hayden said, 'Yes,' adding that his assessment was not based on 'court-of-law stuff. . . . This is Mike Hayden looking at the body of evidence.'

"He said his conviction stemmed largely from Iran's willingness to endure international sanctions rather than comply with demands for nuclear inspections and abandon its efforts to develop technologies that can produce fissile material.

"'Why would the Iranians be willing to pay the international tariff they appear willing to pay for what they're doing now if they did not have, at a minimum . . . the desire to keep the option open to develop a nuclear weapon and, perhaps even more so, that they've already decided to do that?' he said."

Conclusion by rhetorical question. When have we heard that before?

Here's the transcript. Tim Russert asked the obvious follow-up question:

Russert: "I can hear a lot of listeners, viewers asking, 'Well, then why did Saddam Hussein not cooperate more fully if he, in fact, did not have weapons of mass destruction?' Sometimes, people behave in strange ways that we don't understand."

Hayden: "Oh, yeah, I understand. But, but, again, you've asked me for an assessment, you've asked me--and I can only work from the facts that I see. In Saddam's case, he had a nuclear weapon program, he had a weapons of mass destruction program. He stopped it, but in--almost in a deathbed confession, he tells us that he maintained, he continued to maintain the illusion because he wanted the world, or at least the neighborhood, to think that he still had these, these weapons."

An authoritative assessment from the intelligence community issued in December concluded Iran had suspended its nuclear weapons work in 2003. But Hayden's political masters had no use for that conclusion.