terror war will end in Oct 2008

From RawStory.com

Pentagon's number two suggests terror war will end in Oct 2008
02/28/2007 @ 9:00 am
Filed by Michael Roston

The Department of Defense's number two official appears to imply in a memo that the Global War on Terrorism will end just in time for the presidential election in November 2008. The contents of the document are outlined in a column in today's Washington Post.

Al Kamen, who writes the Post's "In The Loop" column, cited a pair of memos written by Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England in today's paper. The first memo was written Dec. 6 and sent to top military and civilian officials. It identifies eight priorities for the coming fiscal year, and the first of them is to "Win the Global War on Terrorism."

In a second memo from Feb. 15, England writes that "to ensure that warfighters and taxpayers receive maximum benefit from on-going initiatives, it would be highly desirable to complete current projects by the summer/fall of 2008."

England then provides a quarterly grid with the same eight priorities from the December memo and "expected milestone conclusion dates" for each one.

As Kamen points out, the first priority of winning the global terror war from the earlier memo is included on the grid, and "looks to be over around October 2008."

The next presidential election will occur in November 2008, a month later.

Kamen's full column can be accessed at the Washington Post's website.


Pencil In That End-of-War Date
By Al Kamen
Wednesday, February 28, 2007; A17
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/27/AR2007022702109.html


The Democrats and other cut-and-runners are in disarray over their next move on Iraq. And they keep jabbering that the administration has no plan for the war other than the same old, same old.

Nonsense. The Pentagon, in a series of recent memos, is making the fight against terrorism synonymous with Iraq (although it has been pretty much confirmed that Saddam Hussein wasn't involved in the Sept. 11 attacks) and has issued a clear call for getting the job done by the end of next year.

In a Dec. 6 memo to top civilian and military folks, Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England outlined the Pentagon's eight priorities for this fiscal year, and No. 1 was "Win the Global War on Terror," or GWOT.

The No. 3 goal was "Meet the Challenge of Improvised Explosive Devices." No. 8 was "Improve Effectiveness and Efficiency Across the Board." England warned that meeting these goals "will inform our decisions on individual senior employee performance ratings." That means their paychecks.

In a Feb. 15 memo, England spotted a key fact that most everyone in this town has overlooked. "At noon on Jan. 20, 2009," he wrote, "many of the civilian Department of Defense (DOD) leadership positions will transition to a new Administration Team. This change, coupled with the normal rotation of military leadership, could disrupt many of the management process changes currently underway in the Department."

So "to ensure that warfighters and taxpayers receive maximum benefit from on-going initiatives," England suggested, "it would be highly desirable to complete current projects by the summer/fall of 2008."

There's a handy "notional" grid with the memos, with the eight priorities down the left side and quarterly milestones for 2007 and 2008 across the top. Little triangles denote the "expected milestone conclusion date."

Sure enough, the GWOT looks to be over around October 2008, a month before. . . .