Dan Froomkin, of the Post's White House Watch, is one of the first to raise questions about General Kevin Bergner, the new U.S. military spokesman in Iraq. Since taking over in May, Bergner has made a series of assertions that bolster the White House's view that all of the problems in Iraq are caused by Iran and Al Qaeda. In his Tuesday column, Froomkin notes that Bergner came to the rescue of the president, who was being treated to skeptical questioning from the normally docile White House press corps about the alleged ties between Iraq's insurgents and Al Qaeda:

So what a stroke of luck it was for the White House when, just a day later, the chief military spokesman in Iraq revealed a dramatic story that would appear to support the president's new favorite talking point: Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner chose yesterday to announce the arrest -- two weeks ago -- of a man he called a leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, who he said had told interrogators about a close operational relationship between his group and Osama bin Laden's inner circle.

Was the timing coincidental? And is Bergner credible? Until recently he was a member of the White House's national security staff, holding the title of senior director for Iraq. Since taking up his new post in May, Bergner has made a series of politically charged allegations against both al Qaeda and Iran, many of which have been basically unverifiable.

It was Bergner, too, who pointed out that the Iraqi insurgents--including the ones who carried out a sophisticated attack in Karbala im January--are getting aid from Iran and from Iran's Lebanese allies, Hezbollah.

Eli Lake, writing in advance of the release of the latest NIE on terrorism, ties it all together, reporting for the Richard Perle-linked New York Sun that Iran and Al Qaeda are in league, according to U.S. intelligence sources:

One of two known Al Qaeda leadership councils meets regularly in eastern Iran, where the American intelligence community believes dozens of senior Al Qaeda leaders have reconstituted a good part of the terror conglomerate's senior leadership structure.

That is a consensus judgment from a final working draft of a new National Intelligence Estimate, titled "The Terrorist Threat to the U.S. Homeland," on the organization that attacked the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. The estimate, which represents the opinion of America's intelligence agencies, is now finished, and unclassified onclusions will be shared today with the public.

In the unclassified version, at least, there was no mention (or even a hint) of this. Lake goes on:

In the estimate's chapter on Al Qaeda's replenished senior leadership, three American intelligence sources said, here is a discussion of the eastern Iran-based Shura Majlis, a kind of consensus-building organization of top Al Qaeda figures that meets regularly to make policy and plan attacks. The New York Sun first reported in October that one of the Shura Majlis for Al Qaeda meets in the federally administered tribal areas of Pakistan, one of the areas the Pakistani army this week re-engaged after a yearlong cease-fire. Both Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, participate in those meetings.