Friday, 15th July, 2004, 23:56 BST

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C, I Ain't Bluffing

Report is as Bad as Predicted

George Tenet publicising his autobiography, "How I Found a Pile of WMD During My Life As FBI Chief", currently in the final stages of proof reading by US analysts.

US senators have levelled damning accusations at the CIA for intelligence failings surrounding the decision to go to war with Iraq but, after a short consultation with Lord Hutton, decided that the failings cannot be attributed to any pressure from George Bush.

In a scathing report, the Senate Intelligence Committee (sic) said that none at the CIA were willing to question any others in a chain of cock-ups stretching from where the buck started, with analysts, to where it stopped, with CIA director George Tenet.

Tenet resigned last night after receiving intelligence that the contents of the senators' report was less than savoury; "The first accurate intelligence I've received in months!" he joked.

Confronted with the accusation that the CIA have not had a human source in Iraq since 1998, Tenet told reporters that "this pullout was due to the ever-present risk of WMD being used against our agents. I mean, we had a hunch that they might be there, what kind of idiot's going to stick around to find out?!"

Recommendations from the report include scrapping of the CIA 'fantasy fiction' department, (which is believed to write under a number of pseudonyms such as Agatha Christie, Isaac Azimov and Iraqi Defector #HN598), and was thought to have produced most of the material in the Iraq reports.

George Bush is happy to have emerged scot-free, with SIC exonerating the President and his administration entirely. Informed of the verdict, the President "Gee, I hope they'll do the same about Iran!" had no comment.