After President Bush's speech to Israel's parliament today, administration spokesmen found themselves scrambling to unscramble whether Bush and his secretaries of state and defense are reading from the same script when it comes to Iran.

    In his address, Bush asserted that anyone who believes that the United States should negotiate with "terrorists and radicals" is guilty of "the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

    The perception that Bush was launching a veiled jab at Sen. Barack Obama, the front-running Democratic candidate for president who has said he'd be prepared to talk with Iran, ignited a political firestorm back home. But it also provoked confusion over the Bush administration's own policy towards the Islamic Republic.

    Only a day before Bush's speech, Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates said that the United States needs to "figure out a way to develop some leverage" over Iran "and then sit down and talk with them."

    Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been more explicit for months, saying that Bush is prepared to "reverse 27 years of policy" and allow her to meet face-to-face "anytime, anywhere" with her Iranian counterpart once Tehran embraces a U.N. Security Council demand to suspend its uranium enrichment project.

    Moreover, the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany have been finalizing a revamped package of economic and political incentives to present to Iran aimed at convincing the Islamic regime to reconsider its defiance of the Security Council and open a dialogue.

    Finally, senior U.S. and Iranian officials met at least three time last year in Baghdad to discuss American complaints of deadly Iranian support for Shiite militias and ways of stabilizing Iraq.

    So does Bush support such discussions or does he view them as appeasement? Is there a disconnect over Iran between him and his senior-most national security aides?

    "I can tell you there is absolutely no gap between the secretary's position on Iran and the president's position on Iran,"  insisted Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell. "The secretary sees no prospect for government-to-government talks, negotiations, until such time that the Iranians feel such pressure from diplomatic, economic and military pressure that we are putting them under that they want to change their ways."

    "I don't think you've heard anything different from him (Gates) than you would have heard, than you have heard from Secretary Rice," averred State Department spokesman Sean McCormack. "As Secretary Rice has said, we're fully prepared to engage with Iran. They are not, at this point, prepared to engage with us."

    So, now, is it clear whether Rice and Gates are on the same page as their boss?