Free Republic

Dov Zakheim says Israel squandered a chance to help a friendly White House solve the Mideast conflict. WASHINGTON - After three and a half years at the nerve center of U.S. defense policy under President George Bush, former undersecretary of defense Dr. Dov S. Zakheim decided to quit and try his luck in the private sector. In his first interview since he left the Bush team, Zakheim insisted that, when viewed from the Pentagon, the situation in Iraq does not look so bleak. The causes for the war were entirely plausible, he says - and insists most Iraqis support the...

The Defense Department's top money manager told Senate officials March 1 that DoD wants to transfer about $1 billion within its budget to fund three security, humanitarian and reconstruction programs in Afghanistan and Iraq. DoD Comptroller Dov Zakheim met on Capitol Hill with members of the Senate Appropriations Committee's Defense Subcommittee to discuss details of DoD's proposed $401.7 billion fiscal 2005 budget. The fiscal 2005 budget, Zakheim noted to members of the subcommittee, "does not request specific appropriations for these three (spending) authorities, and therefore, the department would need to reprogram funding to use them." The first program, Zakheim said,...