"It's a matter of redeploying resources," he said.
Hammond told the Commons: "We are in the process of redeploying some of our Reaper remotely piloted aircraft from Afghanistan to the Middle East to add to our surveillance capabilities".
The exchange of policing responsibility for Qalqilya and Jericho was likely to be less significant in terms of redeploying forces than in demonstrating renewed commitment by the adversaries to the road map, the peace plan supported by the Bush administration.
The $50 billion approved was part of the nearly $200 billion in additional spending that Mr. Bush has requested for Iraq and Afghanistan but the House attached a goal of redeploying troops from Iraq by December 2008 and other conditions that the White House opposes.
Pentagon and administration officials acknowledged that the guidelines drawn up by General Petraeus and his staff at their Kabul headquarters — in particular a goal of redeploying troops pulled from contested areas to other tasks — might clash with timetables set by some NATO nations to begin pulling troops from Afghanistan.
A more independent national intelligence chief, they argue, would control the budgets and day-to-day operations of the Pentagon's intelligence agencies, and could do a better job of redeploying them to address more pressing concerns like terrorism and the proliferation of nuclear weapons instead of the military and its preoccupation with enemy armies.
But the quiet move that produced the first sign of the North's willingness to stretch bi- to multi- -- a touch-fingertips meeting with the U.S. last month under Beijing's auspices -- came after Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld spoke of redeploying the vulnerable 37,000 U.S. troops now along the North-South border.
"Answer songs" had long been a staple of country music, and an enterprising songwriter in Louisiana, JD Miller, had the notion of redeploying the tune for a woman's riposte: it was not women's frailties, but uncaring men, that were responsible for the soiled doves of the backstreets – "From the start most every heart that's ever broken/ Was because there always was a man to blame".
Still, it now appears focused on the pragmatic task of redeploying its test vehicles regardless of its position on legality, something that makes a lot of sense given the wealth of other challenges the company is currently facing.
Councillor Tahir Ali said: "We are doing all we can to support staff with the aim of redeploying as many as possible within the city council or supporting them into mainstream employment".
Another Slate commenter would have BP pay the cost of redeploying 50,000 US military and earth moving equipment from the Persian Gulf to the Gulf Coast.
