Playing games with the Iran intelligence again.

I was caught very sharply by these top headlines on AP and Reuters.

AP: Mullen: Iran has fissile materials for bomb

Reuters: Iran "not close" to nuclear weapon: Gates

Now, both statements can be true, but the message discord should raise an eyebrow, especially when you read how the Mullen answer came about.

Mullen was asked if Iran now had enough fissile material to make a bomb. He responded, "We think they do, quite frankly. And Iran having a nuclear weapon I've believed for a long time is a very, very bad outcome for the region and for the world."....

Mullen seemed to restate that position in his remarks on CNN's "State of the Union." He was not asked to elaborate.

That seems a very specifically worded way to ask that question, even within the context of the IAEA report, so I gotta wonder if Mullen gave them some form of that wording in the pre-interview. (If you ask me this question in terms of "fissile material"....)

(Wouldn't you think he'd later "elaborate" on CNN to shorten the distance to his boss's position?)

Maybe my tinfoil hat is on too tight, but this smells to me like Mullen is tried to drag a policy argument out onto TV.

Later: A Time piece looking at the distance in the statements, saying Mullen "quickly corrected himself" through a spokesman. (Yeah, not quite as profile as the original statement.)