Open to uncertainty

We're still not sure whether or not most of Bushco will take "I don't know" for an answer. (For that matter, anything other than "Thank you sir, may I have another?" seems to be problematic.) But American intelligence services are being instructed to say just that when appropriate:

John D. Negroponte, the new director of national intelligence, has imposed strict safeguards intended to ensure that the government's National Intelligence Estimates are based on credible information instead of the kinds of unsubstantiated claims that were the basis for prewar intelligence on Iraq, his top deputy said Thursday...

General Hayden acknowledged Thursday that the new precautions were likely to result in estimates that proved much less definitive than in the past. But he said he and Mr. Negroponte would embrace "a higher tolerance for ambiguity" than had been accepted and would encourage analysts to be forthright about what they did not know...

Other government officials said the standard had already been applied, to a recent highly classified intelligence report on Iran, producing findings that the officials described as infused with considerable uncertainty about the status of Iran's nuclear weapons program.

It's especially interesting to hear this applied to Iran specifically; the explicit doubt (make a note of it for later) should make it much tougher for Bushco to try to force a war there later on.

There's no word yet on whether Bush already regrets appointing Negroponte. But if this order is actually going to be acted upon (and some skepticism is called for at this point), then reality may play a significantly larger role in Bush's lame-duck years than it's played so far in the administration.