Now They Tell Us

Remember that Jim Carrey movie in which he plays a lawyer who can’t help but tell the truth, and it keeps getting him in trouble? On Monday, a similar affliction seemed to have struck two central architects of the Bush administration’s Iraq policy.

Addressing the Council on Foreign Relations, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld veered starkly off message when asked about the alleged ties between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. “To my knowledge, I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two,” he said, countering the White House’s much discredited story.

Elsewhere on this day of refreshing candor, L. Paul Bremer III, President Bush’s proconsul in Iraq until late July, conceded that “we never had enough troops on the ground” in Iraq, and that the U.S. erred gravely in not quelling the looting and violence that swept the country last year. In a little-noticed speech last month, Bremer said he “should have been even more insistent” when his advice on troops was rejected.

Both men hastened to spin their truths, to show they are loyal team players. But what this administration suffers from is too much blind loyalty and not enough probing skepticism from high officials.

The president and his national security advisor, Condoleezza Rice, continue to show an unflattering loyalty to a version of the truth devoid of any grays. For example, Rice said in September 2002 that aluminum tubes sought by Iraq were “only really suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs.” But new reports in the New York Times argue that key intelligence relating to Iraq’s nuclear program was known to be questionable when it was written. At the time, the Energy Department found basic errors in the CIA tube-related analysis, and, on Sunday, Rice was reduced to pleading ignorance, admitting she didn’t know at the time what the “dispute” over the tubes was about. Even Porter Goss, the new CIA chief, acknowledges that some administration arguments for war appeared overstated.

Bush lamely said during his debate with Sen. John Kerry that “the intelligence I looked at was the same intelligence my opponent looked at.” That’s hard to swallow, given the resources of the White House. Then again, given what Bremer, Rumsfeld and even Rice have said in the last few days, how much was Bush not told?

Monday’s unexpected burst of candor is handy at this point mostly for “I told you so” score-settling. It can’t undo Iraq’s continued violence and chaos. Unfortunately, some things are not much better late than never.