It's official: People in gov't who write honest reports not only expect their drafts to be falsified by regime loyalists but are trying to fight it

You've probably heard about the Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on the results of the Iraq surge, which was requested by Congress and will be delivered in final form Tuesday. Today's Washington Post carried a report ("Report Finds Little Progress on Iraq Goals") on a "strikingly negative GAO draft" that was leaked to the paper.

This is not to be confused, of course, with the pack o' lies 'n' spin--er, report--that the White House will be serving up the second week in September. That will be the official response to the "just wait till September" line of bull the Bush regime has been feeding us all summer. Congress has taken the precaution of commissioning more reliably objective reports: this one from the GAO and an evaluation of Iraqi security forces from an independent commission headed by retired Marine Gen. James L. Jones.

Lane Hudson was struck, in a News from the Left post, by a curious detail in the Post report caught, detailing how the paper got hold of the draft: "The person who provided the draft report to The Post said it was being conveyed from a government official who feared that its pessimistic conclusions would be watered down in the final version -- as some officials have said happened with security judgments in this month's National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq."

I think by now all DWT readers are familiar with this drill as practiced by Bush regime loyalists. The very definition of a "draft report" in this regime is a report that hasn't been "fixed" yet. I think it's safe to say that there's no such thing as a report that a really loyal Bush loyalist can't "fix," especially if he/she is blessed with total ignorance of the facts. (This comes in really handy when it's time to rewrite reports that were once science-based--before the regime hoodlum took his/her ax and crayon to it.)

Now, Lane notes, we have an indication that government insiders are coming to grips with, and looking for ways around, this reality:

Interesting, huh? Government officials are now leaking reports because they fear the White House or the Pentagon will change them so much that they will no longer accurately reflect the truth. It's pathetic that I'm not surprised one tiny little bit. That's how far gone my trust in the Administration is. It's also all the more reason why Congress needs to stand up and put an end to this charade and stop the War.