Thursday, January 18, 2007

Operation New Phrase

Pentagon website -- A plus-up of Iraqi soldiers is a component of President Bush’s strategy to stabilize Iraq’s capital city and parts of western Iraq, senior U.S. military officials said during a Baghdad news conference today.

UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan, who was apparently drafting his post the same time as the above, attributes the phrase to a "military source", despite its appearance on a public website.

FINAL UPDATE: As seemed to be the case at the time (and which Sully missed), plus-up was specifically being used to refer to the increase in Iraqi troops. The phrase is still in use in that regard by the Pentagon, as the first failure to actually plus-up becomes evident (Peter Pace quote via Dan Froomkin).

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