Word: pentagonal
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...spring with organized campaigns aimed at transforming Sunni neighborhoods into Shi'ite strongholds. But U.S. patience may be coming to an end in the wake of the execution of Saddam Hussein, whose passing left Sadr as the one visible face of opposition to American efforts in Iraq. A Pentagon report released in December described the Mahdi Army as the main threat to stability in Iraq. And the U.S. military upped the stakes with Sadr during a recent raid against the Mahdi Army in Najaf, where U.S. forces killed a senior Sadr aide, Sahib al-Amiri, in the same...
...Allowing Afghans to build that house themselves is the goal of an ambitious plan unveiled at the Pentagon late last year by General Karl Eikenberry, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, and Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak. It calls for the establishment of a fully functioning army three years ahead of the schedule originally envisaged. "The formula for success in Afghanistan is to enable the Afghan national security forces to defend the Afghan people," Wardak told the press conference. But armies take years to build, and Wardak is looking to double the current troop numbers...
...will be Iraq. For the past three years Democrats could paint the war as the Republicans' misadventure because the G.O.P. controlled both the White House and Congress. But Democrats now control the purse strings for that war - and with that power comes a new measure of responsibility. The Pentagon will come to Congress next month with a request for an additional $99.7 billion to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan until September, which marks the end of the fiscal year. Pelosi and Reid will have to decide if they want to alter Administration war strategy through funding cuts...
...Others, not least the White House and the Pentagon, say, all too blithely, that numbers like these are arbitrary and unimportant. But that only highlights the non-numerical false milestones and would-be watersheds they have set up in the past. It is not just statistics that can lie. When Saddam was captured, it was going to break the back of the insurgency. Same when a democratic government was elected, a constitution drafted, a coalition government formed. The latest false milestone is the death of Saddam, another momentous event in the history of Iraq that is unlikely to change...
...size of the military, though he remained noncommittal on whether he would send more troops in Iraq. But the military chiefs appear to be running out of patience. "What has finally put some backbone in the Chiefs," says a former senior officer who maintains good contacts with the Pentagon, "is that, to date, there has not been a realistic end state in Iraq identified that matches the realities on the ground. Tactics without a strategy are a recipe for failure...