"In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen and not in mine is the great issue of civil war.

VOA: special.2009.07.30

Is there a chance, though, that your tying the hands of commanders in war time by putting this into federal law?

NPR: Women in Combat: Rules and Reality

During the course of the Hutton inquiry, Mr Scarlett was criticised for agreeing to make key last minute changes in the dossier because Number 10 chief of staff Jonathan Powell feared it would play into the hands of anti-war groups.

BBC: John Scarlett has been chief of MI6 since 2004

America's first taste of military defeat came at the hands of British and Canadian troops in the war of 1812.

ECONOMIST: Letters