Indeed, the media generally seem to be a better source of information for members of Congress than does the Pentagon. Dayton described a classified meeting that Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had with roughly 40 senators at the end of April. "They didn't mention one word on the '60 Minutes II' report that was going to be airing in literally hours" -- the story that ignited the Abu Ghraib firestorm.

Nevertheless, members of Congress are determined to get the information they want. So, for example, they have inserted language requiring answers to Skelton's questions into the military authorization bill that is moving through the House. "It's ridiculous to have to put that into law," one Democratic staffer told me. But members believe they have no other option.

Yet there's no guarantee that even that will do any good. Consider the Pentagon's record of informing Congress on how the billions of dollars in supplemental spending are being used. Starting with the first supplemental spending bill immediately after Sept. 11, 2001, Congress gave the Defense Department some flexibility, but required that it submit quarterly reports on how the cash was being spent. The reports came regularly for a while, but mysteriously stopped last year, just after the invasion of Iraq.

"The last one covered activity through February 28 of last year and was included in a report dated May 9, 2003," said a Democratic staffer on the House Appropriations Committee. "That was the last report we got until about a week and a half ago. They didn't meet all of the requirements of the law in terms of regular reporting on expenditures, and what they did tell us was so general that it was virtually meaningless."

The uncommunicative, even secretive, attitude of the Bush-Rumsfeld Defense Department was perhaps best summed up at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing last month when Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., asked Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz for access to a report on Iraqi security forces by Maj. Gen. Karl Eikenberry. Wolfowitz said he would see if he was allowed to share the report. "We have just as much a right to this information as you do," an outraged Reed told Wolfowitz. Reed is still waiting to see the report.

"We are a government intricately reliant on checks and balances," Tauscher said. "This is not a kingdom with someone having complete fiat and decision power. This is a democracy, and people have got to have informed environments to make informed choices. But I'll tell you, it's very, very hard to keep someone accountable if the components of accountability are dismissed."

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