Hot landing zones were the most glaring flaw in Anaconda. A Navy SEAL was killed when his Chinook received intense ground fire and had to back off a planned landing spot. The commandos went in to establish a blocking force to kill enemy fighters trying to escape from Shah-e-Kot.

New China wars
Pentagon officials are upset by what they see as an effort by pro-Beijing officials in the State Department and the White House National Security Council staff to discredit the harder-line policies on China of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

They cite as evidence a recent item in the Far Eastern Economic Review. The magazine stated that Michael Pillsbury, a key adviser to Mr. Rumsfeld who is fluent in Chinese, misinterpreted discussions between Mr. Rumsfeld and Chinese Vice President Hu Jintao about military exchanges.

The magazine article stated that the State Department's interpreter was forced out of the meeting and that Mr. Pillsbury's interpretation misled the Chinese vice president into falsely believing Mr. Rumsfeld was set for a full-scale resumption of U.S.-Chinese military exchanges. The Pentagon later disputed official Chinese press reports that said that.

A U.S. official familiar with the dispute said NSC China staffer James Moriarity was responsible for the critical magazine item. Mr. Moriarity declined to be interviewed. This official said Mr. Moriarity has criticized Mr. Rumsfeld in interagency discussions for supposedly being ignorant about Chinese affairs, despite the fact that Mr. Rumsfeld has traveled to China several times.

Pentagon spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Jeff Davis said yesterday he would not disclose details of who was permitted into the 45-minute meeting at the Pentagon on May 1. But he denied there were any language misinterpretations.

"The fact of the matter is we are confident that both parties on both sides of the table left with a full and complete understanding of what was said and what was agreed to," Cmdr. Davis said.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon's military exchanges with China, once a very public effort, are now secret. As part of the Bush administration's overall effort to keep more of its activities from the public, the latest annual report to Congress on military exchanges carried a classified "confidential" label and will not be made public, we are told.

The secrecy on the exchange report contrasts sharply with earlier openness. In 1999, defense officials released to The Washington Times a detailed "game plan" for defense exchanges that outlined more than 80 activities by the U.S. and Chinese militaries, including visits by high-level officials, and trips by Chinese officers to sensitive U.S. military facilities, including a nuclear submarine base, joint training maneuvers in California and talks on logistics, a key weakness of Chinese military forces.

Mr. Rumsfeld cut off all military exchanges with China in April, but pro-Beijing officials are pushing to resume large-scale contacts. Mr. Hu, during his meeting with Mr. Rumsfeld, invited the defense secretary to visit China.

Kadish's future
"Will he stay long term or go?" is the question being asked by Pentagon insiders about Lt. Gen. Ronald T. Kadish. As director of the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency, Gen. Kadish is the man who is attempting to make a reality of President Bush's vision of national missile defense.

He is said to be well-liked by Bush loyalists, and by his immediate supervisor, Edward Aldridge, the undersecretary of defense for acquisition. The rank and file give him high marks for reorganizing the agency and presiding over a string of successful test intercepts.

Next month, he reaches the three-year mark as director, the normal tenure for senior officers in any one post. Insiders say he is ready to stay on, if he wins a fourth star from the Bush administration.

"He wants to stay there," said a Pentagon source. "He wants to be known as the person who brought it to reality."

Pam Bain, chief spokeswoman for the agency, said Gen. Kadish has been asked to stay on at least another year. As to a fourth star, "We've heard talk of that, but we don't hear it inside the building."

Crusader
The fact Army Gen. Tommy Franks never requested artillery for the war in Afghanistan played a role in the decision by the staff of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to recommend cancellation of the Crusader artillery system.

The Army seemed to sense early in the war that it needed to showcase artillery in Afghanistan or face criticism that in this new type of warfare, artillery was not needed.

Defense sources say a number of Army officials, including Undersecretary of the Army Les Brownlee, a retired Army colonel and Vietnam combatant, asked why Gen. Franks had not yet requested artillery.

Gen. Franks, who as head of U.S. Central Command is running the war, answered back that heavy mortars, not artillery, were the answers to cave-hidden al Qaeda fighters.

Armitage's record
We received a number of e-mails scolding us for writing, as many news outlets have done, that Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage is a former Navy SEAL.

To set the record straight, Mr. Armitage was a Navy surface warfare officer who specialized in the special operations field of counterinsurgency. He completed three combat tours with the Riverine/advisory forces in Vietnam.