The War on Terr...ible Facts

I was reading a number of conservative sites the past day or two-- The National Review, the NY Post, Powerline, RedState, etc-- and oddly enough, the following story was not mentioned. Congress isn't debating it, because they have the crucial Roger Clemens matter to attend to. I found it via Talking Points Memo, for the record (*).

NY Times: Army Buried Study Faulting Iraq Planning

The Army is accustomed to protecting classified information. But when it comes to the planning for the Iraq war, even an unclassified assessment can acquire the status of a state secret.

That is what happened to a detailed study of the planning for postwar Iraq prepared for the Army by the RAND Corporation, a federally financed center that conducts research for the military.

After 18 months of research, RAND submitted a report in the summer of 2005 called “Rebuilding Iraq.” RAND researchers provided an unclassified version of the report along with a secret one, hoping that its publication would contribute to the public debate on how to prepare for future conflicts.

But the study’s wide-ranging critique of the White House, the Defense Department and other government agencies was a concern for Army generals, and the Army has sought to keep the report under lock and key...

This is, of course, par for the course for this administration, and how everything is political to them. The actual war itself, and the numerous failures and disasters that have surrounded it, are not a problem to them. But a "wide-ranging critique" of their policies comes along and they circle the wagons. Facts are a dangerous thing, because god forbid we learn from our mistakes.

Later in the article, it notes that-

The report was submitted at a time when the Bush administration was trying to rebut building criticism of the war in Iraq by stressing the progress Mr. Bush said was being made. The approach culminated in his announcement in November 2005 of his “National Strategy for Victory in Iraq.”

And that 2005 White House report came at a time when the administration was finally beginning to lose control of the narrative about the war. And at that time, all the war's defenders rallied around this report, insisting that its critics should shut the fuck up because we now had the plan to turn that final corner... until 2007, when they pretended that they had criticized it all along, as they all rallied around The Surge, the latest administration PR campaign plan for turning this lemon into lemonade.



And at the end of the article, there is this-

Neither General Lovelace nor General Melcher agreed to be interviewed for this article, but General Lovelace provided a statement through a spokesman at his headquarters in Kuwait.

“The RAND study simply did not deliver a product that could have assisted the Army in paving a clear way ahead; it lacked the perspective needed for future planning by the U.S. Army,” he said.

Perspective/Assistance = Toeing the administration line and never questioning our decisions. (This attitude being what elicited hero-worship for Gen. Petraeus on the right). There are very serious people running our country; never doubt that.

[* The report was also briefly mentioned by Jon Stewart last night to Bill Kristol.]