Bush Battles Military Over Iran Intelligence

February 15, 2007
Bush Battles Military Over Iran Intelligence

"No, no, no, no," White House spokesman Tony Snow said Monday in response to questions about whether the administration embellished evidence against Iran in a U.S. military briefing in Baghdad the previous day. "I'm almost ready to hit my head on the microphone."

"In the old days, if the U.S. government had come out and said, 'We've got this, here's our assessment,' reasonable people would have taken it at face value," the official said of the Baghdad briefing. "That's never going to happen again."

Bush contradicted the military's account, saying, "We don't know . . . whether the head leaders of Iran ordered" it.