English Quiz 115

English Quiz 115

1. It's hard to imagine now, but there was a time when George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld were regarded as a national-security dream team, three men perfectly suited to perilous times: the President, instinctive and decisive; the Vice President, a sage and tested Washington veteran; and the Defense Secretary, whose brio and charm were rare and reassuring. Or so it was thought.
Q: 試翻 "three men perfectly suited to ... were rare and reassuring."

2. But in 2006, the dream team died, and its members instead became objects of scorn and emblems of failure. Their signature venture — the Iraq war — spiraled relentlessly downward into civil war. As it did, Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld sealed their fate by diving deeper into denial about the realities on the battlefield. "We're making progress in Iraq," Bush said on numerous occasions during the year. "Absolutely, we're winning," he said in late October, calling Iraq a crucial battle in the broader war on terrorism. The old Navy pilot Rumsfeld, who in early 2003 said the war might last "six days, six weeks, I doubt six months," was still wearing his rose-colored goggles last February when he was asked if Iraq would be a long war. "No," said Rumsfeld, "I don't believe it is." Ten months later, the U.S. had been fighting in Iraq longer than it took to defeat the Nazis in World War II. On a mid-October morning when 15 U.S. troops had died in the previous 48 hours in Iraq, Cheney told TIME, "We're not looking for an exit strategy. We're looking for victory."
Q: 試翻 "As it did, ... on the battlefield."