This could be something; it could be nothing. At this point, though, you don’t have to be a cynic to believe the Bush administration no longer deserves the benefit of the doubt.
Another big stack of pages is causing concern over at the Senate Armed Services Committee, which is investigating abuses at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison. Committee aides discovered belatedly that their copy of the 6,000-page report on prison abuses produced by Major General Antonio M. Taguba might not be complete. The copy they got after Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s testimony on May 7 was a thick document with 106 annexes, and it was quickly arranged into separate binders. Only later did the committee stack up all the pages, compare them with a ream of 6,000 blank pages and decide that at least 2,000 pages were missing.
“We’d certainly like to know why they’re missing,” said Republican Senator John McCain. Pentagon spokesman Larry Dirita insisted, “If there is some shortfall in what was provided, it was an oversight.” Committee staff members haven’t actually counted the pages. Chairman John Warner will investigate this week to see what is missing.
It’d be so much easier to believe this was some kind of innocent clerical error if the administration — Rumsfeld, in particular — hadn’t developed a track record for deceiving the Senate Armed Services Committee. Not only did he lie to the Committee about when he initially saw the ICRC report, he didn’t even find it necessary to tell Committee members about the abuse photos, though he spoke to the panel the same day the pictures were released.
Indeed, trying to hide information from Congress and get away with it would certainly be part of the administration’s modus operandi, especially it when it comes to congressional oversight.
Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), another Armed Services Committee member, said he became aware Friday of the possibility of the missing pages.
Reed, who appeared with Roberts on CBS’s “Face the Nation” yesterday, indicated he would not be surprised if it were true because of the way, he said, that the Defense Department usually treats Congress.
“There’s a lack of cooperation. There’s a lack of candor. And that has hurt not only their perception but also gives rise to feelings or inferences that something is amiss deliberately,” Reed said. “I hope that’s not the case.”
I do too, but I’ve come to expect the worst from this White House, and they rarely let me down.