Abizaid succeeded General Tommy Franks as Commander, USCENTCOM, on July 7, 2003, and was also elevated to the rank of four-star general the same week.

Abizaid was appointed to the board of directors of RPM International on January 24, 2008, and also sits on the board of directors of the Defense Ventures Group.

Downing ( who also graduated West Point in 1962 ) and John Abizaid.

Although Maliki, who vowed to crack down on militias upon stepping into office, presented his national reconciliation plan on June 25, and despite the security crackdown in Baghdad begun on June 14 dubbed Operation Forward Together, United States Central Command Commander John Abizaid, with the backing of Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Peter Pace, on August 3 told the Senate Armed Services Committee, " Sectarian violence is probably as bad as I have seen it.

Abizaid ’ s military education includes the United States Military Academy ( USMA ) at West Point, New York ( Class of 1973 ); Infantry Officer Basic and Advanced courses, Armed Forces Staff College, and a U. S. Army War College Senior Fellowship at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.

In remarks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies reported on September 17, 2007, Abizaid stated, " We need to press the international community as hard as we possibly can, and the Iranians, to cease and desist on the development of a nuclear weapon and we should not preclude any option that we may have to deal with it.

Abizaid retired from the military on May 1, 2007 after 34 years of service.

In November 2005, Abizaid gave a speech on the war on terrorism at the Naval War College.

On August 3, 2006, Abizaid, in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the following about the situation on the ground in Iraq: " I believe that the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I ’ ve seen it, in Baghdad in particular, and that if not stopped, it is possible that Iraq could move towards civil war.

In State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III ( as excerpted in Newsweek magazine ), Bob Woodward of the Washington Post wrote that on March 16, 2006 Abizaid was in Washington to testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

On 12 February 2004, insurgents attacked a convoy carrying General John Abizaid, commander of US Forces in the Middle East, and the 82nd Airborne's Major General Charles Swannack, firing on the vehicles from nearby rooftops with RPGs, after seemingly infiltrating the Iraqi security forces.

The sequence involving the bulldozer is based on a real event involving Army General John Abizaid, former commander of US Central Command ( July 2003-March 2007 ).

" In the U. S. Invasion of Grenada in 1983, Abizaid improvised an attack on a Cuban bunker by having his unit take cover behind a charging bulldozer ".

Acting on the apparent logistic redundancy of keeping two separate task force teams for Iraq and Afghanistan, General John Abizaid decided to combine both teams into a single streamlined force, forming the TF121.

They suggest there was a leadership void at U. S. Central Command because his two deputies, Michael Delong and John Abizaid, were at odds with each other until Abizaid succeeded Franks in the middle of the summer of 2003.

John Philip Abizaid ( born April 1, 1951 ) is a retired General in the United States Army and former Commander of the United States Central Command ( CENTCOM ), overseeing American military operations in a 27-country region, from the Horn of Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, to South and Central Asia, covering much of the Middle East.

As of 2007, Abizaid is employed as a fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

Abizaid, a Lebanese American, was born in northern California.

Abizaid is married and has three children.

Abizaid greatly impressed his teachers at Harvard University.

Abizaid was commissioned a Second Lieutenant of Infantry upon graduation from the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, Class of June 1973.

Abizaid commanded the 3rd Battalion, 325th Airborne Regiment combat Team in Vicenza, Italy, during the Persian Gulf War and deployed with the battalion in Northern Iraq to provide a safe haven for the Kurds.

Robert Gates with Fallon and John Abizaid at the CENTCOM Change of Command ceremony, 2007.

On December 20, 2006, it was announced that Gen. Abizaid would step down from his position and retire in March 2007.

On March 16, 2007, Abizaid transferred command to Admiral William J. Fallon, after serving longer as Commander, U. S. Central Command than any of his predecessors.

He was asking had it been she who left the love note in his sheets ( she also served as maid ) when he saw the Grafin followed by a stately blond girl approaching his table.

There was also a lesson, one that has served ever since to keep Americans, in their conflicts with one another, from turning from the ballot to the bullet.

as Pike proved himself adept in the political arena, he also became a social lion in the village of Little Rock, where he served as a symbol of the culture that the ladies of the town were striving so eagerly to cultivate.

It served also as a literary form exactly appropriate to the fragmented audience of modern urban culture.

Their ham butts, cured in oak-log smoke, were also esteemed when roasted or boiled, and served with this original sauce:

The choice of the single member district was dictated to a certain extent by problems of communication and understanding in the more remote areas of the country, but it also served to minimize the national political value of the elections.

A refrigerated item could also be heated and served in less time than is required for frozen foods of the same type.

He had been a choir boy at the Holy Name Cathedral and also served as an acolyte to Father O'Brien.

Mackenzie also served as Minister of Public Works and oversaw the completion of the Parliament Buildings.

Ampère also provided a physical understanding of the electromagnetic relationship, theorizing the existence of an “ electrodynamic molecule ” ( the forerunner of the idea of the electron ) that served as the component element of both electricity and magnetism.

This gave him access to a disciplined corps of workers, who also may have served as his first soldiers.

During the post-Phoenician era of the eighth century a palace was erected and a port was also constructed, which served the trade with the Greeks and the Levantines.

The boule also served as an executive committee for the assembly, and oversaw the activities of certain other magistrates.

His motto, " All is well since all grows better ", served not only as a good rationalization of his successful business career but also in his view of international relations.

He also served on the board of Auto Union, the successor to Audi Automobilwerke GmbH.

Ann Arbor also became a locus for left-wing activism and served as a hub for the civil-rights movement and anti-Vietnam War movement, as well as the student movement.

It starred Adam Brazier as Hapgood, Kate Hennig as Cora, Blythe Wilson as Fay, and Richard Ouzounian as Narrator, who also served as director.

In addition to his public service work for charitable organizations for the handicapped, Capp also served on the National Reading Council, which was organized to combat illiteracy.

* Bar ( establishment ), a retail establishment that serves alcoholic beverages, also the counter at which drinks are served by a bartender

He also served in the U. S. Navy in World War I, as a shipboard radio operator, as an editor of a publication, and as a crash rescue boat commander.

In the 1990s, he had the role of Lennier in the syndicated sci-fi TV series Babylon 5, and he also served as narrator of A & E Network's Emmy Award-winning series, Biography.

He also served as a Nazi spy in the United States and, in 1941, he was caught by the Federal Bureau of Investigation ( FBI ) in the largest espionage case in U. S. history: The Duquesne Spy Ring.

They are also an ingredient of the gräddfil sauce served with the traditional herring dish served at Swedish midsummer celebrations.

Carreras ' father, Benjamin Nunez, also served as the Costa Rican ambassador to Israel.