Word: centcom
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been "the best recruiting officer" for U.S. military efforts to partner with Arab states over the past year. That's according to General David Petraeus, who as commander of Centcom is responsible for overseeing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and security efforts throughout the region. "There were certain countries which used to hold us at arm's length that have over the last year embraced Central Command in certain cooperative endeavors," Petraeus told TIME in an interview on Dec. 13, citing ballistic-missile defense agreements and shared early-warning systems. "Ahmadinejad's rhetoric...
What's been good for Centcom has also been good for the high-tech U.S. arms industry. Despite the global recession, Arab states have signed huge deals for U.S. military hardware, whose sophistication has been on full display in two long wars in the neighborhood. Petraeus said countries in the region now deploy eight Patriot missile-interceptor batteries - up from zero a few years ago - made by Raytheon Corp. And the Pentagon last month announced that Kuwait had ordered upgrades of its Patriot missile system, in a deal worth $410 million. But Raytheon isn't the only beneficiary of anxiety...
...Administration spent much of last week distancing itself from McChrystal's recommendation. "There are other assessments from very expert military analysts that have worked on counterinsurgencies that are the exact opposite," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told PBS's NewsHour. But with Centcom commander General David Petraeus and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen lining up behind McChrystal, some Republicans are accusing the President of risking the lives of the nearly 68,000 troops already in Afghanistan by "dithering," as the top Republican on the Intelligence Committee, Kit Bond, put it on Fox News Sunday...
...Although Petraeus quickly added "all joking aside," the collateral damage was already done. Air Force partisans got wind of the Centcom chief's comments and tracked them down to the Marine Corps Association website, which carried both the text of Petraeus' prepared remarks - including the ponytail crack - and a video of his talk. On Thursday, the Air Force Association daily newsletter called Petraeus' remarks "beyond outrageous" and said they "belittled the contributions of the Air Force to the joint force." The association, a non-profit educational group that supports the service, said the comment is "symptomatic of the long-held...
...credit they deserve. True, fighter pilots get an outsize share of attention to match their egos. But it's the flyboys-and-girls ferrying people, fuel and supplies - and piloting reconnaissance flights - around the globe that keep the war machine humming. "Petraeus, as leader of Centcom, the joint force charged with running operations in Southwest Asia, should have known better than to make such disparaging remarks, even in jest," the Air Force Association declared...