Word: pentagonal
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...planners have their way, exchanges like that will soon become commonplace. With a new Iraqi government settling into office, Washington is in a rush to train an Iraqi army capable of taking over the fight against the insurgency. And it's still a fight. Though senior Pentagon officials are "cautiously optimistic," as one puts it, that the insurgency may be starting to subside, few think the war is close to being won. The Pentagon's measures of the insurgency's strength--there are more than 50 metrics--show that the battle is basically where it was a year...
...helped develop the F-16 fighter, isn't a neocon ideologue like Wolfowitz and has cultivated warmer relations with Congress. In 2002 he helped save billions of dollars by combining the Navy and Marine Corps aviation programs, and he has been given politically sensitive duties, notably overseeing the Pentagon's review of detainee cases at Guantánamo Bay. Rumsfeld is counting on England's skills to help reform hiring and firing rules for the Pentagon's 700,000-strong civilian work force; implement the closing or realigning of bases around the U.S.; and supervise the Quadrennial Defense Review, which will...
...tangled with a disabled Vietnam veteran on the air. Robert Muller, co-founder of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, asserted that "in 90% of the cases that U.S. soldiers got blown up [in Vietnam]--Ann, are you listening?--they were our own mines." (Muller was misquoting a 1969 Pentagon report that found that 90% of the components used in enemy mines came from U.S. duds and refuse.) Coulter, who found Muller's statement laughable, averted her eyes and responded sarcastically: "No wonder you guys lost." It became an infamous--and oft-misreported--Coulter moment. The Washington Post and others...
...Shiites demanding immediate U.S. withdrawal was a sharp reminder of the pressure that will be placed on the leaders of the new government both by their own Shiite base and by the Sunni community they are energetically wooing. Such pressure is likely to grow, and any ambition the Pentagon may have harbored to turn Iraq into a long-term base at the heart of the Middle East to replace Saudi Arabia may now be beyond reach. (Evidence of such ambitions abounds, from the construction of 14 "enduring" U.S. military bases in Iraq, a development highlighted by Senator John Kerry during...
Another way the Saudis are trying to cope with their cash squeeze is by cutting government spending. This year's budget reduces military outlays 20%, to $17.8 billion, softening the Saudi market for U.S.-made weapons and stirring worry in the Pentagon over the kingdom's defense capability. Subsidies on food, electric power and gasoline are down 20%. The Riyadh government is also slashing money for new industrial projects. Two refineries worth $1.5 billion were canceled after 15% of the construction had been completed. Particularly hurt by the cutbacks are American and South Korean contractors who have been building...