The intelligence community embarked on an ambitious international operation to intercept the tubes before they could get to Iraq.
Unable to raise the capital it needed to continue its ambitious operations, the company plunged into crisis, with some $10 billion in debts.
Yet some officials said they believed that the threat might now arise in the nature of less ambitious operations planned by individual Al Qaeda cells.
They would follow orders, but this was a far more ambitious operation than they had expected.
The United Nations moved in with a huge and ambitious peacekeeping operation.
Eventually, Kirponos convinced his political officer that a less ambitious operation would commence on the early hours of the 24rd.
Yet the full motivation for this ambitious operation is, at best, unclear.
It's an ambitious operation that, in its early days, stayed open until 3 a.m., serving coffee and desserts.
But going to Baghdad would be an ambitious operation for a service that has traditionally focused on storming the beaches.
Just to the north, Europe's most ambitious peacekeeping operation is unfolding in the Balkans.