Calling for Candor

Monday, August 4, 2003; Page A14

IT'S MORE CRITICAL than ever that the administration level with lawmakers and the American people about the likely financial costs of U.S. involvement in Iraq. But it's not happening. The evasion has a familiar feel. In the weeks leading up to the war, the administration treated anyone who had the temerity to ask about cost as a boob who failed to comprehend that such figures were, as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, "not knowable." Then, five days into the fighting, the administration produced a remarkably precise figure for the size of the check it needed Congress to cut -- instantly. At the same time, the administration waved off questions about the costs of postwar reconstruction, pointing confidently to billions in oil revenue and seized assets. As it turns out, the anticipated oil revenue this year will be a relative trickle, and the amount anticipated for 2004 is far less than needed to get Iraq functioning.