How in the world do we know that in exactly 20 months, we'll be done? No more, no less? Or is it a case of, "Spend like hell and get that oil pipeline built before the Dems get in office and stop us"?
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
