HUH?

Condi: Rummy's in charge.

U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said on Tuesday that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld remained in charge of Iraq's rebuilding despite a White House reorganization seen as diluting his power.

"We are in complete agreement about this ... the Defense Department and Secretary Rumsfeld remain the lead agency in the reconstruction of Iraq," Rice told reporters in her first public comments on tensions between Rice and Rumsfeld that surfaced last week.

The tensions followed disclosure the National Security Council had reorganized its handling of Iraq policy across the government in a way some analysts said weakened the Pentagon's authority.

Rumsfeld complained he was not consulted about the creation of the "Iraq Stabilization Group," which the White House said was established under Rice to cope with an accelerated reconstruction effort following anticipated congressional passage of a $20.3 billion measure to fund the rebuilding.

After leading U.S. senators called on Bush to assert control over his team, the president told a television interviewer on Monday that "the person who is in charge is me."

Rice said on Tuesday, "This is a policy of the president of the United States and we all work for him."

Rice is one of Bush's closest advisers and confidantes, but she played down her policy-making role. "What I do is coordinate policy, I don't operate. I don't implement," she said.

From the looks of it, we're witnessing an administrative game of 3-card monte, with cards for Rummy, Condi and Dubya, respectively.