Lagniappe - On the latest in Iraq, I just don't understand the Bush Administration's secretiveness and its obfuscation. For one story on the recent events, see this New York Times story. For those who don't trust the "ultra-liberal" New York Times, a more conservative take on the same story can be read at The Washington Times. If the Administration has clear and damning evidence against Saddam, why won't it come clean with the American public? The Washington Times says that the Bush Administration doesn't want to "tip its hand." But what would it be tipping its hand towards? The weapons inspectors are in Iraq. Surely the Inspectors and the Bush Administration can time such a release of information so that the inspectors can hit these sites as soon as the information is made public. Iraq would have no time to hide anything, and any refusal to permit inspections or to delay access would be a clear violation of the UN resolution and a sign of Iraqi prevarication - which the Bush Administration claims Iraq has been doing all along. Furthermore, now that it looks as if the Bush Administration will probably act unilaterally anyway, and that war is a foregone conclusion, why is not tipping the hand so important? I just simply don't understand it. It makes no rational sense. The only thing the US public is left with is (1) either blind trust of our own government, which seems willing to share information with a UN in which it has no faith and whose cautious stance it can't tolerate, but not with the American public against which the Iraqi threat is very real and which seems to be itching for some face time with Saddam, or (2) that it simply doesn't possess hard evidence of Iraqi lies about weapons of mass destruction, but just anecdotal evidence. Come on, Bush, don't pull a Saddam and hide things even from your own people under the guise of "national security" concerns. Come clean.