On the bloodiest day yet for US troops in Iraq, President George W. Bush declared yesterday that the upcoming Iraqi election is already a success and a "grand moment for those who believe in freedom.

Declaring it a success before it happens may be a bit premature. Civil war is still eminent.

George W. Bush�s re�lection was not his only victory last fall. The President and his national-security advisers have consolidated control over the military and intelligence communities� strategic analyses and covert operations to a degree unmatched since the rise of the post-Second World War national-security state. Bush has an aggressive and ambitious agenda for using that control�against the mullahs in Iran and against targets in the ongoing war on terrorism�during his second term. The C.I.A. will continue to be downgraded, and the agency will increasingly serve, as one government consultant with close ties to the Pentagon put it, as �facilitators� of policy emanating from President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney. This process is well under way. Despite the deteriorating security situation in Iraq, the Bush Administration has not reconsidered its basic long-range policy goal in the Middle East: the establishment of democracy throughout the region. Bush�s re�lection is regarded within the Administration as evidence of America�s support for his decision to go to war. It has reaffirmed the position of the neoconservatives in the Pentagon�s civilian leadership who advocated the invasion, including Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, and Douglas Feith, the Under-secretary for Policy. According to a former high-level intelligence official, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff shortly after the election and told them, in essence, that the naysayers had been heard and the American people did not accept their message. Rumsfeld added that America was committed to staying in Iraq and that there would be no second-guessing. from The New Yorker's Seymour Hirsh http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?050124fa_fact Hmmm, can an Iranian campaign be that far down the road. In: black reconnaissance Out: CIA covert ops