Word: pentagonal
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...prosecutors did not ask for it formally until the following March. What was in play until nearly the day of the indictment was whether Moussaoui would be charged in federal court or would become the first defendant in the new military-tribunal system that Bush authorized in November. The Pentagon fought for control of the case, but the Justice Department, led by criminal-division chief Michael Chertoff, won out, wanting to show that the U.S. criminal-justice system could handle a major terrorism case in the post-9/11 world...
...defendants have a constitutional right to interview witnesses who might help prove their innocence. But the Pentagon and the CIA refused to make Binalshibh available, saying he was undergoing interrogation and that vital national-security concerns made him off limits. The clash prompted a flurry of court filings and intense discussions within Justice about whether to abandon the case and refile it in a military tribunal, where Moussaoui's rights would be more limited and intelligence issues could be kept under wraps...
...addition, there are signs of foreign involvement in the unrest. U.S. officials doubt that Iraqis by themselves had the know-how to pull off assaults like the car bombings. Moreover, a Pentagon intelligence officer in Iraq told TIME, "It is totally against the psychology of the Iraqi people" to become willing suicide bombers. In Washington's view, the troublemakers are foreign terrorists, either al-Qaeda operatives or returning members of the al-Qaeda--linked Iraqi group Ansar al-Islam. Many Iraqis blame the big hits on an influx of Arab Islamists bent on holy war. Observers say unknown numbers have...
...power. In the Sunni triangle, the remnants of the Baath Party regime are thought to still account for a sizable segment of the anti-American militants. But U.S. officials believe they are making progress against the loyalists, as more figures from the deposed regime are captured or killed. Pentagon officers say the modest scale of the attacks suggests that they are conducted by small cells operating largely on their own. "If they could launch bigger attacks," says a Central Command officer, "they would...
Inside the Pentagon, the brass maintain that as long as U.S. troops are dying by ones and twos, they can deal with it. But the steady accumulation of casualties is generating political fallout that goes beyond the President's declining approval rating. An unscientific but arresting survey last week in Stars and Stripes, the Pentagon-subsidized but editorially independent military newspaper, reported that half the troops serving in Iraq believe their unit's morale is low. A third said their mission lacked clarity; half said they were unlikely to re-enlist. Perceptions like those undermine military authority and help sour...