Number of people killed across Iraq today.

Contrary to recent rumors, “White House officials say President Bush has every intention of keeping Mr. Rove on through the rest of his term,” the New York Times reports. But the White House “seems aware of the apparently limited influence in Congress of Mr. Rove. … Joshua B. Bolten, the White House chief of staff, was dispatched to the Hill this week to hold meetings with members, suggesting that he is likely to play a more prominent role.”

On CNN, New Yorker journalist Seymour Hersh reported that a new CIA assessment concludes that “there’s no evidence Iran is doing anything that puts them close to a bomb.” Despite the intelligence agency’s conclusion, Hersh reports that the White House is still aggressively moving ahead with preparations for a military conflict with Iran.

As part of the White House’s preparations for Iran, Hersh says President Bush and Vice President Cheney are “stovepiping” intelligence and keeping information provided by the Israelis hidden from the CIA.

The Israelis are telling the White House, according to Hersh’s new article “The Next Act,” that they have a reliable agent inside Iran who reports that the nation is working on a trigger for a bomb. “Of course the people in the CIA want to know who [the agent] is, obviously,” Hersh said. “They certainly want to know what other evidence he has of actual making of a warhead. This is the internecine fight that’s going on — the same fight, by the way, that we had before Iraq.” Watch it:

Prior to the Iraq war, the White House set up intelligence stovepipes to “get information they wanted directly to the top leadership.” Cheney and company relied on information provided by the Iraqi National Congress, an exile group headed by Ahmad Chalabi. “Chalabi’s defector reports were…flowing from the Pentagon directly to the Vice-President’s office, and then on to the President, with little prior evaluation by intelligence professionals.”

State Dept. intelligence expert Greg Thielmann said that prior to the Iraq war that “garbage was being shoved straight to the President.” A U.S. official confirmed that defectors from Chalabi’s organization “had provided suspect information to numerous Western intelligence agencies. ‘It’s safe to say he tried to game the system,’ the official said.”

Hersh’s article suggests a similar breakdown in the intelligence process is happening with regards to Iran and may open to door to possible intelligence manipulation.

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This Morning on ABC, commentator and foreign policy scholar Fareed Zarkaria slammed John McCain’s plan to send more U.S. troops to Iraq, saying it “will not work.” Zakaria explained that “we have enough troops” but the Iraqi government won’t let them “go after the militias.”

According to Zakaria, sending more U.S. troops to Iraq in this context is “just willing more American deaths.” Watch it:

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In 1999, the “moderate” version of John McCain said that overturning Roe v. Wade would be dangerous for women and he would not support it, even in “the long term.” Here’s McCain in the San Francisco Chronicle:

I’d love to see a point where it is irrelevant, and could be repealed because abortion is no longer necessary. But certainly in the short term, or even the long term, I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade, which would then force X number of women in America to [undergo] illegal and dangerous operations.

This morning on ABC, McCain — now aggressively courting the likes of Jerry Falwell — expressed his unequivocal support for overturning Roe v. Wade. Watch it:

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