You say "the Pentagon can safely eliminate thousands of nuclear weapons . . . but must maintain enough to discourage attack."

The Pentagon has maintained that it has moved steadfastly to protect all its troops in Iraq.

The Pentagon maintains that they had military applications.

For years the Pentagon maintained that, at most, only a few hundred troops were exposed to toxic chemicals in the gulf war.

Those troops would bring their counterterrorism skills to covert missions while allowing the Pentagon to maintain that no uniformed combat forces were in action.

The Pentagon maintains a $6.5 billion stockpile of strategic materials used in military hardware.

And even now, defense analysts said, the Pentagon maintains programs to obtain military equipment from potentially hostile nations, including China, through practically any means possible.

The Pentagon maintained that all four weapons had been destroyed.

In 2006, the Pentagon maintained that he was a terrorist.