I think you are accepting the conventional wisdom here when you should be thinking a little deeper. Govts have always kept secrets when the truth was worse.
I remember that Reagan was also portrayed as 'inept' and was quite content to let his enemies believe that. I can assure you that the administration isn't 'inept'. They simply allow that perception to persist because it is in their best interest to do so.
Think about it.
“They simply allow that perception to persist because it is in their best interest to do so.”
It is the best interest of Bush senior, Clinton, and Congress.
Bush and Cheney are the only guys in town who seem to say the truth but are surrounded by the old dark deeds of Washington between 1990-2002.
Remember the years 1990-2002 : they were the weakest for the security of the US in a century.
The polls indicate the unwashed masses have been brainwashed by the media harlots into thinking our involvement in Iraq can be simply terminated by pulling out with little or no consequences to us. The prostitutes in Congress are dancing to this tune. There is a very real danger that either Congress will cut off funding to the Iraqi operation or that the public reaction to the same will adversely impact the Republicans in 2008.
It would behoove the Administration to come clean with as much ammunition as possible to blow the Dems out of the water and justify our continued presence there.
I have trouble wrapping my head around what could actually be worse than allowing this particular instance of secrecy to damage civilian support for the war, prolong it for the US military, and undermine the country's moral authority.
Who are we actually protecting? France? Germany? Russia? The Clintons? The State Department? The CIA?
Protecting people that spend their days actively plotting the administration's downfall hardly makes any sense here on my planet.