Vietnamese assessment of the damage can be taken as accurate."
The following day Richard Crossman, speaking for the government in the. House of Commons, refused: to reaffirm the previous stand taken on the bombing of urban centres. Despite being pressed by various Labour members he remained evasive.
The U.S. State Department ' s admission on December 22 that there was the possibility of "errors" in bombing raids over north Vietnam further weakened the Wilson Government's credibility on the issue. Such were the doubts raised that in an editorial on December 24 The Guardian said:
"American generals in Vietnam are apt to disconcert us all from time to time by such apparently naive remarks. They might almost be fighting the war in a closed political circuit, insulated from all those ungovernable currents that cause turbulences in Washington, New York, Moscow, and Rome. To be fair to them, the President, and particularly the Secretary of State, can be even more disconcerting. The generals have more excuses. Their professional task is the military one of winning the war; President Johnson's is the political one of ending it.