Military Officers Fill In Rumsfeld's Honesty Gap

The New York Times reports American "generals pulled back from recent suggestions, some by the same officers, that positive trends in Iraq could allow a major drawdown in the 138,000 American troops late this year or early in 2006." One officer suggested Wednesday that American military involvement could last "many years." Another officer said "the success of American goals in Iraq was not assured." He said, "I think that this could still fail."

This is really bad news, both in terms of troops not coming home, and in terms of how badly the Bush administration screwed this all up in its pigheaded, pre-determined march to war. The only good news is that at least rank-and-file officers are willing to be honest with Americans where the Bush administration has made an art out of lying.

Then again, we should have known from the get-go that we would be misled about military engagements by incompetents in the Bush administration. As Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said at his confirmation hearing in 2001, "How would you characterize what success is? When you've done something, how do you know when you've done it that you've done what you went in to do, and what is success, and what's your exit strategy? When does it end? Is there some point where it's over, or is it interminable?"

Secretary Rumsfeld, you can continue to pretend you don't know what success is, but clearly, your own officers are far more willing to openly admit things may not be as rosy as you keep telling the public they are.