Word: pentagonal
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...years ago, when he fled the Pentagon and took over the World Bank, hoping in part to salvage his reputation, the onetime ambassador to Indonesia announced that the number one threat to democracy and development around the world was corruption. Maybe so, but making corruption the World Bank's public enemy number one left longtime bank veterans rolling their eyes at Wolfowitz's naivete...
...Wolfowitz, who raised the idea of invading Iraq with President Bush just a week after September 11, is known for keeping many irons in lots of fires. An aide once told me he had seen Wolfowitz on several occasions conduct multiple telephone conversations simultaneously. His job at the Pentagon was to think the big thoughts and let the others worry about the details. His Pentagon boss, Donald Rumsfeld, once explained their relationship with a modesty that was false but nonetheless telling: "Paul's an academic. I'm a Cook County politician...
...Better Late than Never You reported that the U.S. Army has ordered trucks designed to deflect improvised-explosive-device blasts [March 26]. Where has the Pentagon been for the past 30 years? As a member of the South African Defense Force in 1979, I rode in vehicles shaped exactly how you described. They were most effective in diverting mine blasts away from the passengers and thereby saving their lives. That the U.S. military has only now caught on makes it appear it does not have the lives of its soldiers at heart. Wayne Pringle, Matatiele, South Africa...
...House and Senate funding bills tied to withdrawal from Iraq in 2008. Bush is sure to veto them. He's right that without congressional funding, military operations would eventually have to be scaled back. But calamity is not exactly imminent. The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service recently found that the Pentagon could finance the war at least through the end of June by shifting existing funds. Then there's the so-called "Feed and Forage" Act, a Civil War--era law that lets the President incur debt, without congressional approval, for such wartime troop expenses as "clothing, subsistence, fuel, quarters, transportation...
...that counterterrorism requires intensive police work, Giuliani certainly has the skills and experience to do the job. He would undoubtedly clean up the mess in the Department of Homeland Security. He might be bullheaded enough to prevent Congress from buying more of the cold war weapons systems that the Pentagon doesn't want, and redirect the money to the spies and surveillance needed for the long-term struggle against al-Qaeda. He might even be more judicious about the use of force than the Bush Administration has been...