Hess' lede announces what appears to be a significant development in the otherwise waning U.S.-Iran conflict over Iraq. "Iraqi Shi'ite assassination teams are being trained in at least four locations in Iran by Tehran's elite Quds force and Lebanese Hezbollah," she writes, "and are planning to return to Iraq in the next few months to kill specific Iraqi officials as well as U.S. and Iraqi troops, according to intelligence gleaned from captured militia fighters and other sources in Iraq."

But a careful reader quickly learns from perusing the next several paragraphs that this official assertion is actually based on nothing more than speculation. It is just another propaganda blast in the guise of an intelligence briefing.