"I think if I had been delphic, and had seen where we are today, and people had said, 'Should we go into Iraq?,' I think now I probably would have said, 'No, let's consider other strategies for dealing with the thing that concerns us most, which is Saddam supplying weapons of mass destruction to terrorists," Perle is quoted by David Rose in the Vanity Fair article. Also interviewed are two other former Bush insiders, Kenneth Adelman and David Frum.

These accusations by former administration insiders greatly contradict the White House's mantra that all is well in Iraq and that the situation is constantly improving. The former insiders single out the president as the number one cause of the current mess, stating that the lack of a clearly defined policy is to blame.

Perle says: "The decisions did not get made that should have been. They didn't get made in a timely fashion, and the differences were argued out endlessly."

And here is the coup de grace from a former insider in what was until recently believed to be an administration built on solid loyalty and a Bush White House practically immune to leaks. "At the end of the day, you have to hold the president responsible," said Perle. "I don't think he realized the extent of the opposition within his own administration, and the disloyalty."

Responding to the magazine's accusations, a White House spokesman said, "The president has a plan to succeed in Iraq..."

If that were to be the case what is the president waiting for? If, as the White House alludes, the president does have a coherent plan to bring the chaos in Iraq under control and reinstate peace, then maybe right about now might be a good time to put this plan in action.

But more likely than not, this is Washington spin in the making. The president's plan to pacify Iraq -- short of deploying a tactical nuclear devise -- lacks substance.

David Frum, the former White House speechwriter who is credited for the "Axis of Evil" line in Bush's 2002 State of the Union address, chimes in: "It now looks as if defeat may be inescapable," because "the insurgency has proven it can kill anyone who cooperates, and the United States and its friends have failed to prove that it can protect them."

"This situation," says Frum, "must ultimately be blamed on 'failure at the center' -- starting with President Bush."

And from Kenneth Adelman, a Pentagon insider who served on the Defense Policy Board until 2005: "I believe demolishing Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk." Now he says, "I just presumed that what I considered to be the most competent national-security team since Truman was indeed going to be competent. They turned out to be among the most incompetent teams in the post-war era. Not only did each of them, individually, have enormous flaws, but together they were deadly, dysfunctional."

But Bush loyalists, including those mentioned in the Vanity Fair interviews, claim they were quoted out of context and that the magazine is playing politics, hoping to influence this week's elections.

With only one day left before the midterm elections are battled out at the voting booth all across the United States, analysts are saying this will be one of the most important round of balloting, a crucial election where the war in Iraq figures predominantly. Accordingly, one should not be surprised to see more spin unleashed in print, on the airwaves and the Internet as candidates and their supporters fight up to the last minute for the hearts, minds and votes of the undecided voters.

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