It’s about time the Bush administration learned admitting mistakes is more important than saving face when matters of national security are concerned. After much prodding, Bush finally agreed to allow an independent investigation into pre-war intelligence and American intelligence operations in general.

It’s understandable why Bush wants to downplay the weapons of mass destruction topic this election year. Months of searching and interrogation have only turned up the slightest inklings of the deadly weapons he promised were in Iraq. Even the optimistic coating he tried to paint in his State of the Union address — that we had identified “dozens of weapons of mass-destruction related program activities” — was glaringly thin.

Bush did not initially admit there was a problem, even when David Kay, the former chief U.S. weapons inspector whose report Bush cited in his address, said last week he did not believe actual WMDs would ever be found in Iraq.

On Monday, though, Bush announced he would appoint an independent commission. Why the hesitation? Perhaps the administration was wary of the political fallout an investigation will inevitably bring. To be fair, Bush’s opponents have been zealous in plying the notion that Bush lied outright about intelligence, a claim made even more believable now that Kay has spoken up.

But it’s important to remember that for all the damning things Kay has said, he still believes Bush made the right move given the intelligence he — and the rest of the world — possessed. There is simply no way at this point to know if Bush was being deceptive, nor does the probe need to be concerned with that possibility.

Because the real issue here is why the intelligence gathered was so poor that the administration was bamboozled. Bush can continue to proclaim the positive results of the pre-emptive strike on Iraq. But it stands to chance that not all intelligence failures in the future will end so fortunately (as the administration would want us to see the Iraqi situation) with oppressive regimes being overturned and people dancing in the streets.

Whether or not you agree with the way the administration is fighting the war on terror, everyone should agree that good intelligence is absolutely critical to success.

This is why the Bush administration’s attempts to stonewall a probe are alarming. Has it already forgotten how failures in intelligence allowed Sept. 11 to happen? If the administration wants to keep fighting the good war against terror, it must swallow its political pride for the sake of the country and allow a sincere and thorough investigation in what went wrong with the intelligence on Iraq.