The Pentagon's Scary PowerPoint

By SALLY B. DONNELLY, DOUGLAS WALLER

The Pentagon, which is calling for the largest defense budget since the cold war, has been floating scary threats lately. TIME has obtained a copy of a PowerPoint presentation that senior officers have been showing to groups around the U.S. warning that failure to stop Osama bin Laden and his ilk would have the same "consequences" as Europe's appeasement of the Nazis before World War II. Bullet points describe possible U.S. economic depression and Washington being forced into an "accommodation" with terrorists. Skeptics question the timing of such predictions. Says security analyst John Pike: "The Pentagon has a long tradition of dialing up the threat to get more dollars at budget time."