The Central Intelligence Agency has spent six years and $110 million trying to overthrow Saddam Hussein in the most expensive sustained failure in agency history. Iraq is the Bay of Pigs in unending free fall, with fresh humiliation looming around the corner.

The agency could not stop throwing money at the Saddam problem if it wanted to. Refusing to admit defeat, the White House orders this international embarrassment prolonged. The current covert operation, which will cost about $5 million this year, has dwindled into an ineffective propaganda effort carried out by two Arabic language radio stations in Jordan and Kuwait.

Senators who normally line up to rail at executive agencies for wasting taxpayer money have kept quiet on the CIA debacle in Iraq. The Senate Intelligence Committee passed up a golden opportunity to educate itself and the American public on Tuesday when it failed to probe CIA Director-designate George J. Tenet about Iraq and cost-effectiveness in Tenet's confirmation hearings.