During the Watergate scandal, the two reporters at the center of the storm, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein coined a term for any Administration denial of facts which did not come out and say the story was abjectly false: the “Non-denial denial.”  When you get one of these in response to a story, you know you are on to something.

Case in point--Sy Hersh's new piece in the New Yorker magazine which claims that U.S. Special Forces have been operating within Iran in preparation for taking out Iranian nuclear production facilities.  Our old buddy Larry DiRita, who last graced the Iron Mouth during the Al Qaa Qaa scandal responded today to Hersh's piece:

Hersh's article, published on Sunday, was "so riddled with errors of fundamental fact that the credibility of his entire piece is destroyed," DiRita said.

Hersh reported that President Bush (news - web sites) had signed a series of top-secret findings and executive orders authorizing secret commando groups and other Special Forces military units to conduct covert operations against suspected terrorist targets in as many as 10 nations in the Middle East and South Asia.

DiRita did not comment on that assertion.

Instead, he said, Hersh's sources fed him "rumor, innuendo, and assertions about meetings that never happened, programs that do not exist and statements by officials that were never made."

Asked whether U.S. military forces had been conducting reconnaissance missions in Iran, Defense Department spokesman Lt. Col. Barry Venable said, "We don't discuss missions, capabilities or activities of Special Operations forces."

Looks like it will be a long three years before the impeachment proceedings.