The next step in the process is that the president will decide whether or not he's going to send it to the Congress as is, |
The overall level of Afghan and coalition security forces in the country is growing. |
The secretary doesn't feel this is push back. He feels it's an important clarification. |
The soldiers were advised as to the issues they should expect to discuss, and decided among themselves who would speak to each issue as it may arise, |
The tension that the commanders feel between heavy presence and lower footprint is something they're measuring all the time. |
There's a lot of people who know that that's an obvious question |
They're obviously quite capable of killing large numbers of noncombatants indiscriminately, and we're seeing a lot of that, too. |
We altered the rotations of units during the January election. And I think it's perfectly plausible to assume we'll do the same thing for this election, |
We altered the rotations of units during the January election. And I think it's perfectly plausible to assume we'll do the same thing for this election. |
We have learned a lot since [2001]. |
We see an adversary that ... continues to develop some sophistication on very deadly and increasingly precise standoff-type weapons. |
we should be more focused on. |
We'll have a lot of flexibility to be able to let the forces stack on top of one another during the rotation (of troops in and out of Iraq) so that we can have a greater capability during key points. |
We're always looking to see if there are modifications that might be needed to the procedures |
We're getting more intelligence that's allowing us to stop more of these things, find more of them. So we're learning from them (the insurgents) and the enemy is learning from us, and it's going to be that way for as long as there is an insurgency. |