there's candor, and then there's suicidal candor
I was very impressed with the candor on Squyres' Athena website in the years leading up to launch, as he talked about the various problems they had. OTOH, finding water is politically essential in keeping a steady stream of Mars missions funded into the future. Without the water, Mars would get only a little more attention than Venus.
Squyres and just about every Mars space-mission scientist I've read about also supports manned exploration, and I think that's just a political compromise they make. I don't think they believe it.