В яблочко;

The paper goes on to quote Centcom commander Gen. David Petraeus: “There is stunning potential here. There are a lot of ifs, of course, but I think potentially it is hugely significant.”

But veteran Afghan hands say the “discovery” of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth is hardly new. And some detect an echo of Petraeus’ effort to “put a little more time on the Washington clock” for the Afghanistan surge as he once described his public relations strategy to buy time in the U.S. for the Iraq surge. The Times report itself notes the Pentagon agreed to discuss the minerals discovery as a rare good news story amid many more disturbing reports coming from Afghanistan.

“The ‘discovery’ of Afghanistan’s minerals will sound pretty silly to old timers,” one retired former senior U.S. official based in Afghanistan writes. “When I was living in Kabul in the early 1970’s the [U.S. government], the Russians, the World Bank, the UN and others were all highly focused on the wide range of Afghan mineral deposits. Cheap ways of moving the ore to ocean ports has always been the limiting factor.”
http://www.politico.com/blogs/laurar...ton_clock.html

Там даты, фамилии, и т.д.