Mis-spoken

Alberto Fernandez, a senior US state department official was quoted on al-Jazeera as saying that the US has shown "arrogance and stupidity" in Iraq.

Needless to say, the State Department were quick to try to "rubbish" this. A State Department spokesman, Sean McCormack, said:

"What he [Alberto Fernandez] says is that it is not an accurate quote."

However, the BBC Arabic language experts the said that Mr Fernandez did indeed use the words.

Therefore, in a second attempt to "gloss over" this, Mr Fernandez has now said that he mis-spoke.

It is assumed that he has been told to say this.

Meanwhile CBS News has reported that $800M, earmarked to fight the insurgency in Iraq, had been stolen by people running the country's Ministry of Defence before the 2005 elections.

As ever, the body count also continues to mount.

Mission accomplished!

Pah!