The US President has long denigrated the non-partisan work of his intelligence analysts, but he has finally ratcheted that up to the firing of top officials, says Kent Harrington

THEY say the play’s the thing.

The United States today demanded an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss a letter in which Sudan’s government said it would view any troop commitments to a future UN peacekeeping force in Darfur as a “hostile act” and a “prelude to an invasion,” a US official said.