Word: pentagonal
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Even as there's talk inside the Pentagon of extending the troop surge in Iraq well into 2008, the U.S. military remains in a vise, crushed between the demands of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that have made recruiting more difficult. Right now, there are only two real ways to extend or even increase the surge: call up more reservists - always tough to do in an election year - or extend active-duty combat tours from the current morale-wrecking 15 months to an even more painful 18 months. But Marine General Peter Pace, outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs, reassured...
...months to pull 120,000 troops out of Afghanistan. They were simply going next door, and they still lost more than 500 men on the way out. Pulling out 10 combat brigades - roughly 30,000 troops, along with their gear and support personnel - would take at least 10 months, Pentagon officials say. And that's only part of the picture. There are civilians who would probably want to head for the exit when GIs started packing. They include some 50,000 U.S. contractors and tens of thousands of Iraqis who might need protection if we left the country...
...helicopters, armored personnel carriers, trucks and humvees - are now in Iraq. They are spread across 15 bases, 38 supply depots, 18 fuel-supply centers and 10 ammo dumps. These items have to be taken back home or destroyed, lest they fall into the hands of one faction or another. Pentagon officials will try to bring back as much of the downtime gear as possible - dining halls, office buildings, vending machines, furniture, mobile latrines, computers, paper clips and acres of living quarters. William (Gus) Pagonis, the Army logistics chief who directed the flood of supplies to Saudi Arabia...
...QAEDA FACTOR Advocates of a phased withdrawal from Iraq still must overcome the Bush Administration's most vociferous argument against it: that Americans must stay in Iraq to prevent al-Qaeda from establishing a safe haven there. As support from key Republicans has withered, the Pentagon has cranked up the al-Qaeda rhetoric. On July 17, the Administration released the latest National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), which said "Al-Qaeda will probably seek to leverage the contacts and capabilities of al-Qaeda in Iraq" to plot attacks against the U.S. homeland. Bush has turned up the volume, mentioning al-Qaeda...
...plan being devised by General Petraeus' staff in Iraq, which envisions a slow draw-down, paced by the Army's troop-rotation schedule; force levels would begin to ebb in March 2008 and reach pre-surge levels six months later. And there is more radical planning in the Pentagon, which would halve the current troop levels in a year. The growing friction between Petraeus and the Pentagon brass, with the generals desperate to save their Army before it breaks, will be a story to watch in the next few months...