Asking the Questions, Getting the Answers

A regular reader and frequent contributor of excellent comments emailed this morning to provide a reminder of a topic that I regrettably have covered all too infrequently. The ongoing war in Iraq has not been from the beginning a major focus of my blog-efforts, but as the months have worn on, it has gotten harder and harder to even read the stories day after day of more brave American and coalition soldiers - as well as all too many innocent Iraqi civilians - being wounded or killed by insurgent attacks. I've been taking the easy way out, by trying to focus on other things and hoping against hope that somehow a corner will suddenly be turned there. For that, I apologize.

I should have been for months, and will be from now on, adding my voice to those calling on this Administration to answer the tough questions. For much, much too long I have failed to comment on the White House's failure to provide a realistic picture of where things stand in Iraq, where we are going, and what we're going to have to do to get there. Especially in a week that has proven horrifyingly costly in the lives of American soldiers, it would be inexcusable of me not to demand the same accountability from the White House when it comes to the deaths of our men and women in uniform that I demand of them on highway bills and EPA reports.

This Administration, from the President on down, has never provided the American people (or even our representatives in Congress, I suspect) with an accurate, factual portrayal of how things stand in Iraq. Even when one is required by law, and delivered (ten days late), as David Broder notes today, " the quality of the information it has given lawmakers and the public is disappointing." Broder is discussing a 23-page report demanded by Congress in the military spending bill passed this spring, which was submitted in late July.

The report, Broder notes, is filled with "page after page of blank forms that the coalition command in Iraq has developed to assess the quality of personnel, command and control, training, and logistics in Iraqi military and police forces. But the important question of how many of those units are capable of fighting the insurgency, independently or with help from U.S. and British troops, simply is not answered." A question concerning the strength of the new Iraqi army's absenteeism rate and the extent of insurgeny infiltration drew vague responses with literally allow no conclusions to be drawn, and serve only to further muffle the true state of things.

As Broder points out, Congress requires an update to the report within 90 days, "so the Pentagon has an opportunity to improve on the product. The public will be well served if Rumsfeld takes the obligation seriously." Indeed we would. The American people deserve to know the truth about what's going on in Iraq. We don't need more rah-rah speeches from President Bush, or more obfuscation from the Pentagon (known knowns and all that). We deserve the truth. Our men and women in uniform, and their families, deserve the truth. The Iraqi people deserve the truth.

It's time for some straight talk, not vacation.