Word: pentagonal
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...last time the U.S. military waged an air war against a WMD threat, it was in the form of a four-day bombing campaign against Iraq in December 1998. Dubbed "Desert Fox" by the Pentagon, it got relatively little press because President Clinton?s impeachment and doomed House Speaker-to-be Bob Livingston?s extramarital-affair scandal were exploding at the same time. As the attack unfurled, Pentagon officials privately conceded their barrage was based on crude estimates of where Saddam Hussein might be hiding elements of his banned WMD programs...
...senior military officers are known to have challenged Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on the planning of the Iraq war. Army General Eric Shinseki publicly dissented and found himself marginalized. Marine Lieut. General Greg Newbold, the Pentagon's top operations officer, voiced his objections internally and then retired, in part out of opposition to the war. Here, for the first time, Newbold goes public with a full-throated critique...
...driven to action now by the missteps and misjudgments of the White House and the Pentagon, and by my many painful visits to our military hospitals. In those places, I have been both inspired and shaken by the broken bodies but unbroken spirits of soldiers, Marines and corpsmen returning from this war. The cost of flawed leadership continues to be paid in blood. The willingness of our forces to shoulder such a load should make it a sacred obligation for civilian and military leaders to get our defense policy right. They must be absolutely sure that the commitment...
Flaws in our civilians are one thing; the failure of the Pentagon's military leaders is quite another. Those are men who know the hard consequences of war but, with few exceptions, acted timidly when their voices urgently needed to be heard. When they knew the plan was flawed, saw intelligence distorted to justify a rationale for war, or witnessed arrogant micromanagement that at times crippled the military's effectiveness, many leaders who wore the uniform chose inaction. A few of the most senior officers actually supported the logic for war. Others were simply intimidated, while still others must have...
Ghoshroy said he submitted his own report of the events to Rep. Berman this past December, claiming that the Pentagon pressured the GAO to cover up the matter because it did not want to draw attention to a failure in the missile defense plan...