Does the CIA Remain Dangerously Hopeless?

From ABC News Online's article, CIA analysis finds no Iranian nuclear weapons drive: report:

A top US investigative reporter says a classified draft CIA assessment has found no firm evidence of a secret drive by Iran to develop nuclear weapons, as alleged by the White House.

Who needs double-agents when these guys are on the team?

However, on closer inspection, things are not all that bad. Once we discover in the next sentence exactly who is that "top US investigative reporter".

Seymour Hersh, writing in an article for the November 27 issue of the The New Yorker magazine released in advance, reported on whether the administration of Republican President George W Bush was more, or less, inclined to attack Iran after the Democrats won control of the US Congress last week.

Phew. For a moment there I thought this could be credible. Time to relax, kick back, and enjoy the parody.

"The CIA found no conclusive evidence, as yet, of a secret Iranian nuclear weapons program running parallel to the civilian operations that Iran has declared to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)," Hersh wrote, adding the CIA had declined to comment on that story.

Presumably, the CIA will wait for the second set of lab test results back on the air samples taken from the mushroom cloud before confirming the existence of a nuclear weapons program.

Or perhaps the reverse psychology of Ahmadinejad's public boasts about their nuclear enrichment program and desire to wipe Israel off the map in a storm has confused the CIA.

After all, if it's not a secret, it's out of the CIA's comfort zone.