Taking Pentagon Positions as a Matter of Faith
Military Officials in Iraq Fault GAO Report
By Karen DeYoung and Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writers Wednesday, September 5, 2007; Page A01
A bleak portrait of the political and security situation in Iraq released yesterday by the Government Accountability Office sparked sharp protests from the top U.S. military command in Baghdad, whose officials described it as flawed and "factually incorrect."
The controversy followed last-minute changes made in the final draft of the report after the Defense Department maintained that its conclusions were too harsh and insisted that some of the information it contained -- such as the extent of a fall in the number of Iraqi army units capable of operating without U.S. assistance -- should not appear in the final, unclassified version.
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What is there that this Pentagon and this administration--each of them found to be continually and unashamedly lying--would not have us believe?
At every juncture, at every opportunity for dispassionate evaluation, the war-making and administrative levels of this government have been found untruthful. Now the Defense Department insists the current independent conclusions be redacted from the version given to Congress and the nation.
This is an administration at war with itself and with the time-honored standards of independent evaluation. It is a lying, thieving, illegal transgression upon the face and the fact of America's historic transaction between government and the citizenry.
A spineless Congress enables it and a distracted and propagandized population ignores its worst aspects. The product is a false sense of protection; the price is life, liberty and economic security.
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