Mr. Armitage meet Mr. Ashcroft

Right hand, meet left hand.

Armitage contradicts Ashcroft: The second-ranking official at the State Department said today, in an apparent contradiction of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, that the elections scheduled for Iraq in January must be "open to all citizens."
"We're going to have an election that is free and open," Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said at a House committee hearing, "and that has to be open to all citizens."
...Mr. Armitage's testimony before the House Appropriations Committee's panel on foreign operations, and his comments afterward, seemed to put him at odds, at least for the moment, with Secretary Rumsfeld, who theorized before another Capitol Hill hearing on Thursday that elections might be held in only "three-quarters or four-fifths of the country" because some regions are not yet secure enough.
"So be it," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "Nothing's perfect in life."
...
Any widespread impression of confusion in the administration, especially if it persists, could be damaging, since Mr. Bush's Democratic rival, Senator John Kerry, has stepped up his criticism of the administration's entire approach to Iraq.