Word: pentagonal
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...Repulblican Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee wants to get a second opinion on how the war in Iraq is going, where does he turn? To the Pentagon, but not to the top brass this time. In an unusual closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill last week, Virginia's John Warner, joined by Democratic Senators Carl Levin of Michigan and Mark Dayton of Minnesota, sat across the table from 10 military officers chosen for their experience on the battlefield rather than in the political arena. Warner rounded up the battalion commanders to get at what the military calls "ground...
...said John Ullyot, a Warner spokesman who declined to comment on what was said at the meeting but confirmed that some Capitol Hill staff members were also present. According to two sources with knowledge of the meeting, the Army and Marine officers were blunt. In contrast to the Pentagon's stock answer that there are enough troops on the ground in Iraq, the commanders said that they not only needed more manpower but also had repeatedly asked for it. Indeed, military sources told TIME that as recently as August 2005, a senior military official requested more troops but got turned...
...target of 100,000 by the end of 2006. Elsewhere, NBC News' Tim Russert grilled Rep. John Murtha-the Pennsylvania Democrat and decorated Vietnam War veteran whose impassioned speech on Iraq sparked Friday's meltdown in the House-on Rumsfeld's future and whether Bush should find a new Pentagon chief...
...like Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who, according to high-ranking military officials, has seemed slightly annoyed that the war in Iraq has diverted resources from his real goal of "transforming" the military into a high-tech outfit that can scare the bejeezus out of China. Rumsfeld's Pentagon has refused to undertake the violent reordering of priorities-more special forces, more intelligence, zero boats-needed to fight a scruffy, labor-intensive struggle against an enemy that thrives in shadows in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Rumsfeld's relative indifference to the shooting war since the fall of Baghdad, combined with...
...year ago, when the U.S. military denied using chemical weapons in the Fallujah offensive, the Pentagon said white phosphorus (WP) was used only to illuminate the enemy's position. So when DAILY KOS this month unearthed an article from the Army's Field Artillery magazine in which Fallujah vets described WP "'shake and bake' missions"--to flush the enemy out of trenches and spider holes--the lefty megablog crowed, "Let's see them deny this s___ now." The Pentagon last week admitted that it used WP against insurgents but not against civilians, and said it therefore violated no chemical-weapons...