We have now entered the full, no-holds-barred insanity stage:

Richard Perle, a chief proponent of last year's U.S. invasion of Iraq, yesterday called for the chiefs of the Central Intelligence Agency and the U.S. Defence Intelligence Agency to step down because of their faulty conclusions that Saddam Hussein possessed mass-killing weapons.

Perle, a close adviser to U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, said top officials made no attempt to skew the intelligence about Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction. Instead, he implied, top policymakers relied in good faith on the conclusions of the intelligence agencies.

"George Tenet has been at the CIA long enough to assume responsibility for its performance," Perle told reporters, referring to the director of the agency."There's a record of failure and it should be addressed in some serious way."

"The CIA has an almost perfect record of getting it wrong in relation to the (Persian) Gulf going back to the Shah of Iran," Perle said. He called for"a shakeup" in the U.S. intelligence establishment.

"I think, of course, heads should roll," he said."When you discover that you have an organization that doesn't get it right time after time, you change the organization, including the people.

"I'd start with the head head," Perle said when asked which heads should roll at the CIA. Perle said the DIA" is in at least as bad shape as CIA (and) needs new management."

This Richard Perle.

And this Richard Perle.

You have now officially entered The Twilight Zone.

THIS, TOO: More background here.

AND THIS: Read this post of mine, too -- about how"bad intelligence" didn't make anyone do anything. Not one single goddamned thing.