Word: pentagonal
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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UPGRADES The Pentagon replaced 18,000 humvees with mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles (MRAPs) in 2003. They're superior--but not cheap...
...maintained that the current confrontation with Iran should be resolved diplomatically. But Fallon, when he got outside of Washington, let his independent streak - a tradition among naval officers - say things to TV cameras and reporters that back in the capital he would confine to closed-door meetings at the Pentagon. And the hawks who had been most sanguine about pressing the case for invading Iraq had also been urging a more confrontational line on Iran...
...Fallon's backers in and out of the Pentagon said his departure simply proves that the Administration brooks no dissent on matters of war and peace. "Bush says he'll listen to commanders in the field," one retired admiral says, "unless they say something he doesn't like, and then he fire them." Senior Pentagon officials insist Fallon left on his own, but those familiar with the Pentagon's ways had their doubts. "We're not telling you what to do, Fox" the admiral suggests Gates told Fallon, "but there's hemlock...
...Pentagon officials were upset that Fallon had allowed the Esquire writer Barnett - who said Bush "regularly trash-talks his way to World War III" - travel with him to Afghanistan and Egypt, granted him several interviews, and posed for a photograph that accompanied the article. "There was a pattern of behavior by Fallon," a senior Pentagon official said. "He seemed to be saying things that were out of step with the Administration. Gates never found Fallon to be straying, but certainly publicly he seemed to be straying." Fallon plainly knew the explosive potential of the magazine article; he called Gates last...
...betting inside the Pentagon is that despite Fallon's departure, war with Iran is no more likely next month than it was last month. The U.S. military, its hands full in Iraq and Afghanistan, could only engage in an air war against Iran's nuclear sites. The ramifications of attacking a third Muslim nation since 9/11 are so extreme, military officers believe, that no President would launch such a war in his final months in office...