11.  Putin acted hours after he met with the prosecutor general, Vladimir Ustinov, and senior defense officials in the Kremlin to hear a report about the Kursk disaster.

12.  Senior defense officials said they had to shape a plan that was tough enough, but not too tough.

13.  The senior defense official said it was likely that Saudi Arabia would allow American bombers based elsewhere to fly over Saudi airspace, though that was not yet settled.

14.  The senior defense official said Thursday that Pentagon officials do not expect to follow the White House meeting with a formal recommendation to the president.

15.  The senior American defense official said that NATO would, at first, prevent the hundreds of thousands of refugees in Albania and Macedonia from returning.

16.  There are now as many as nine a night, from an average of four or five, the senior defense official said.

17.  They are what one senior defense official calls some of the boldest sub operations since the end of the Cold War.

18.  Under current plans, the June recommendation will be made by Defense Secretary William Cohen after consulting with Shelton and other senior defense officials.

19.  Winslow Wheeler, senior defense analyst for the Senate Budget Committee, asked mockingly.

20.  Opposition groups have allowed U.S. operatives to question other defectors and prisoners of war, a senior defense official said.