The State Department is obstructing President Bush’s plans to liberate Iraq. No, not Colin Powell’s State Department, though it, as we’ve reported, has been doing its part. The ghosts of State Department past are the ones openly sniping at the president’s policy, a sure sign that what Mr. Bush is up against is a longstanding strain of foggy thinking among the burrowed-in bureaucrats at Foggy Bottom.

Example number one is Edward Peck. National Public Radio identified him Sunday as “former United States ambassador to Iraq” and quoted him as saying, “The Iraq liberation groups are nothing that we can rely upon or use, nothing that the Iraqi people would welcome or accept, and it’s just one more facet of a seriously flawed policy that we have been pursuing blindly and mindlessly now for 12 years.” CNBC had him on August 8 and identified him as “a former American ambassador to Iraq.” Asked about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, he said of America, “we are certainly doing everything to encourage him to develop them because the guy has been under attack now from us, by us for 12 years. Kind of — you know, gives you — gives you that desire to want to be able to defend yourself or even go on the offensive if you can. But that’s more of a response, I think, than anything else.” Mr. Peck is a former American diplomat, but he never served as “ambassador to Iraq,” as the State Department’s own Web site makes clear. Mr. Peck was in Baghdad between February 1978 and August 1980, during a period when America had no ambassador there, only an interests section in the Belgian embassy.

Example number two is David Mack. Mr. Mack is another former American diplomat. He served as the head of the American interests section in Baghdad from May 1977 to February 1978. And he delivered the following sliming of Mr. Bush’s policy yesterday on the front page of the Wall Street Journal: “Proponents of regime-change…underestimate Saddam’s military and political resources, and exaggerate the potential of the Iraqi exile opposition.” The Journal identifies Mr. Mack as “vice president of the Middle East Institute in Washington.” But it does not mention that the Middle East Institute is funded by Saudi Arabia. The crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Abdullah, is listed in the institute’s annual report as a “benefactor.” And the March 1, 2002, issue of the Saudi government English weekly Ain-Al Yaqeen lists the Middle East Institute as among those “Islamic research institutes supported by the Kingdom.” A spokesman for the Institute said its Saudi funding was in the range of “a couple hundred thousand” a year but declined to disclose the exact amount. The institute’s budget in 2000 was $1.48 million. The spokesman said the Saudi funding doesn’t influence the institute’s activities one way or another.

It’s not as if the Saudis are a neutral party here, either. Had Mr. Mack’s Saudi ties been disclosed, and had the Wall Street Journal reporter, Hugh Pope, done some checking, he might have come across an anecdote about the leader of the Iraqi opposition, Ahmad Chalabi, meeting with the Saudi authorities. “Yes, they kept telling him, we will help you attempt to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Yes, we are willing to spend money. But late in the week came the caveat: But of course, you will have to forget all this business about installing a democracy.”

That anecdote appeared in a December 17, 2001, column by the editor of the Wall Street Journal, Robert Bartley, whose wisdom over the years on the subject of rollback in the Middle East more than makes up for yesterday’s front-page stumble by Mr. Pope. All of this may seem like inside baseball. But the war to liberate Iraq is getting under way. Popular resistance is already building — on August 1 on Zaitoon St. in Baghdad, a gunman in an Oldsmobile attacked and wounded one of Saddam’s sons. On August 7 at 9:40 a.m., a bomb went off at Saddam’s national assembly building. Yesterday, Iraqi Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani invited American troops to attack Saddam from ground he controls in Northern Iraq. As the war goes on, it will be important to distinguish the truth from the words being spewed by the State Department officials, present and former, who are afflicted with a case of clientitis.