American officials stressed repeatedly that meeting the timetables depended on the security situation in Iraq, where sectarian killings and attacks on American troops have declined sharply over the past year from the peak levels in 2006 and 2007.
Given that political compromises have greatly slowed the system's cross-state travel, such as by diverting the Southern California route to Palmdale, serving hostile Central Valley cities in the eastern San Joaquin Valley directly rather than with spur lines, and using slower Caltrain tracks on the San Francisco Peninsula, meeting these timetables may very well be impossible.
Mr. Hamoud said the draft specified that meeting the timetable, particularly the goal of full withdrawal by 2011, depended on the security situation.
While the nation's pharmacy benefit managers endorse the Institute of Medicine's call for national electronic prescribing by 2010 ("Report Finds a Heavy Toll From Medication Errors,'' news article, July 21), a big hurdle remains to meeting this timetable.
In particular: meeting the timetable for sequencing through the Sanger Institute pipeline.
The historian David Kynaston cites as her greatest practical achievement her success in meeting the timetable for the raising of the school leaving age; her successor as education minister, George Tomlinson, recorded how hard she had fought to avoid postponement of the reform, and expressed his sorrow that she died before the set date.
Machines must be reconfigured, people must learn and relearn specialized assembly procedures, and work orders must be rescheduled to meet customer timetables and specifications.
In the months after that windfall arrived, sales climbed for leading vendors as hospitals and physicians scrambled to buy systems to meet tight timetables to collect the incentive dollars.
Interconnecting highways are impeccably maintained, trains meet their timetables and airlines are functional, barring frequent strikes by pilots, mechanics and cabin crews.
American commanders dismiss speculation that they are failing to meet their timetable.
