>It's a shame this came out when it did. It may have been the perfect chance to get him without using our ground troops. For all its faults, CNN has been a very successful ally of both the State Department and the CIA for years (even though at times it appears to the public to be the exact opposite).

I heard that before. Ted Turner's CNN, the Washington Post, NYT and a couple of others were prime and willing funnels of CIA news plants. Ted did it to gain quick recognition as a news service in other countries. I guess that during the last 20 years their view point on how they should react as Americans have changed.