Increasingly I'm hearing the old Vietnam Era term credibility gap applied to the administration. The level of secrecy is high and the world only seems to exist in black and white - quite a breading ground for a distancing of words and deeds from fact.
Perhaps the war will end soon, perhaps we will be involved in that area of the world for a long time. In any event the administration and its supporters were on record as claiming it would be quick.
One hopes it ends quickly (although I can't see the peacekeeping phase lasting less than several years and would bet that we will abandon it - remember that, like Yugoslavia, Iraq is a very artificial place ethnically. It would not be surprising to see fighting and general lawlessness break out before the fall of Baghdad). Overseas the US faces an enormous credibility gap - if that spreads to the US, Bush is in real trouble. Television induced impatience probably gives him three or four months.
Of course it is important to consider the insight of its architects. -- Cheney is potential gasoline for the credibity gap fire.
Who Lied to Whom? is a short piece by Seymour M. Hersh in the March 31 issue of The New Yorker (p.41). It discusses the issue of the fabricated document on the Iraqi nuclear program that was used to push Congress into granting the keys to war to Mr Bush. Buy a copy or visit your library if you don't subscribe.
7:32:21 AM 
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