This jumped out at me from a Washington Post article about the, uh, less than enthusiastic response from most of America's closest allies to Bush's plea on Sunday for more assistance in the Iraq War:
British Defense Secretary Geoffrey Hoon announced to the House of Commons he was sending two more battalions to reinforce about 11,000 British troops already attempting to keep order in southern Iraq, although officials stressed the move had been in the works before Bush's plea. But Hoon and his fellow Cabinet member, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, underwent a tough round of cross-examination from critical lawmakers as they sought to justify the additional commitment of soldiers and resources.
"Isn't the simple truth that post-conflict Iraq is a shambles because there was not proper planning in advance?" Conservative Party lawmaker Andrew Mackay demanded of Hoon, while a fellow Tory member of Parliament said the move was "a humiliation" for Prime Minister Tony Blair's government, which had hoped to reduce its military commitment to Iraq.
Straw, speaking later, conceded that the United States and Britain had erred in not anticipating the speed with which Saddam Hussein's government fell and the power vacuum that then ensued. In hindsight, Straw said, "I think there would have been more effective preparations to deal with the possibility of terrorism."
He added: "I don't for a moment suggest that everything was got right -- that's palpably not the case."
Tony Blair's government has been anything but a model of candor on the Iraq War. And even this is an official just admitting the obvious. In itself, there's nothing particularly praiseworthy about Straw's statement.
But it sounds so much more straightforward than anything we hear from Bush, Rummy, Colin Powell, Dick Cheney, Condi Rice, the whole lot of them, that it's striking. When Rummy was testifying to Congress a few weeks ago, he barely bothered to conceal his contempt for them.
But the American public, including our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan and their families, deserve a lot more candor about the war from the Administration than we've heard so far.
- Bruce Miller
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