“Should we be telling the American people we will be there five, seven, 10 years?” Biden asked.

Crocker didn’t answer, arguing that it wasn’t possible to know what the situation would be next summer.

“In the past we have set expectations that cannot be met,” Crocker said. [LA Times]

Ryan Crocker is an ambassador. David Petraeus is a general in the Army. They owe us the truth. Of course they do. Yet, when they are asked one of the most basic questions, they refuse to answer. They pretend the Senators are asking for a precise date. They are afraid they’ll be wrong.

The ambassador and the general may not know if it’s going to take 8.25 years or 8.5 years, but they know it’s going to take more than two. They must have some plan, some idea, some conjecture. We are sophisticated enough to understand what they mean if they were to say, “Of course, there can be no certainty about this, and events may intervene, but the earliest I can see Iraq becoming stable enough for all but a maintenance force to leave is ____.”

Two years? Ten years? Five years? Twenty years? Our experts and our leaders owe us an answer. How can we decide if we should stay the course if we’re not being told to expect the course to be a 100 yard dash, a 5K run, or a double marathon with a triathalon at the end?

This lack of candor ought not be acceptable to us, much less the norm. [Tags: politics iraq petraeus]

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