The Pentagon was shocked by what it read in the paper last Sunday.

From Stars and Stripes:

The Defense Department has temporarily stopped feeding information to retired military officers pending a review of the issue, said Robert Hastings, principal deputy assistant secretary of Defense for public affairs....

Hastings said he is concerned about allegations that the Defense Department's relationship with the retired military analysts was improper.

"Following the allegations, the story that is printed in the New York Times, I directed my staff to halt, to suspend the activities that may be ongoing with retired military analysts to give me time to review the situation," Hastings said in an interview with Stripes on Friday.

Hastings said he did not discuss the matter with Defense Secretary Robert Gates prior to making his decision. He could not say Friday how long this review might take.

"We'll take the time to do it right," he said.

Georgetown students will no longer have the benefit of Douglas Feith's insights into international law, his talent for seeing connections where others do not, or his ability to pack a PowerPoint presentation with punch. That's because his time there is up:

Asked about Feith's status, Robert Gallucci, dean of Georgetown's foreign service school, told us that when Feith was hired -- something that caused an uproar among the faculty -- it was understood he "was on a two-year appointment." Any decision not to renew should not be seen as "a judgment on his performance," Gallucci said, noting that Feith's students' "course evaluations were really good."

Feith, author of a bestseller about his Pentagon days called "War and Decision," said he hadn't decided what to do next. "I'm intensely occupied with book stuff," and there are "several things I'm thinking about," he said.

Word is that keeping Feith on beyond the two-year term again would have infuriated a number of faculty members.

From the AP:

Under pressure to increase their numbers, the Army and Marine Corps are sharply raising the number of recruits with felony convictions they are admitting to the services.

Data released by a congressional committee shows that the number of soldiers admitted to the Army with felony records jumped from 249 in 2006 to 511 in 2007. And the number of Marines with felonies rose from 208 to 350.

You can see a breakdown of the numbers by service and felony released by the House oversight committee here (pdf).

I suppose it was always the case that when top military professionals speak frankly about a war, it makes headlines. Still, given Gen. David Petraeus' famously obtuse presentation to Congress last week, this recent report (pdf) from the National Defense University by Joseph Collins, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Stability Operations in the Pentagon until 2004, couldn't provide a starker contrast. It is titled "Choosing War: The Decision to Invade Iraq and Its Aftermath," and it begins:

Measured in blood and treasure, the war in Iraq has achieved the status of a major war and a major debacle. As of fall 2007, this conflict has cost the United States over 3,800 dead and over 28,000 wounded. Allied casualties accounted for another 300 dead. Iraqi civilian deaths--mostly at the hands of other Iraqis--may number as high as 82,000. Over 7,500 Iraqi soldiers and police officers have also been killed. Fifteen percent of the Iraqi population has become refugees or displaced persons. The Congressional Research Service estimates that the United States now spends over $10 billion per month on the war, and that the total, direct U.S. costs from March 2003 to July 2007 have exceeded $450 billion, all of which has been covered by deficit spending. No one as yet has calculated the costs of long-term veterans' benefits or the total impact on Service personnel and materiel.

The war's political impact also has been great. Globally, U.S. standing among friends and allies has fallen.2 Our status as a moral leader has been damaged by the war, the subsequent occupation of a Muslim nation, and various issues concerning the treatment of detainees. At the same time, operations in Iraq have had a negative impact on all other efforts in the war on terror, which must bow to the priority of Iraq when it comes to manpower, materiel, and the attention of decisionmakers. Our Armed Forces-- especially the Army and Marine Corps--have been severely strained by the war in Iraq. Compounding all of these problems, our efforts there were designed to enhance U.S. national security, but they have become, at least temporarily, an incubator for terrorism and have emboldened Iran to expand its influence throughout the Middle East.

As this case study is being written, despite impressive progress in security during the surge, the outcome of the war is in doubt. Strong majorities of both Iraqis and Americans favor some sort of U.S. withdrawal. Intelligence analysts, however, remind us that the only thing worse than an Iraq with an American army may be an Iraq after the rapid withdrawal of that army.... No one has calculated the psychopolitical impact of a perceived defeat on the U.S. reputation for power or the future of the overall war on terror. For many analysts (including this one), Iraq remains a "must win," but for many others, despite the obvious progress under General David Petraeus and the surge, it now looks like a "can't win."

After all that talk, finally a decision. Behold, America, your new (sort of) way forward in Iraq:

President Bush plans to announce today that he will cut Army combat tours in Iraq from 15 months to 12 months, returning rotations to where they were before last year's troop buildup in an effort to alleviate the tremendous stress on the military, administration officials said.

The move is in response to intense pressure from service commanders who have expressed anxiety about the toll of long deployments on their soldiers and, more broadly, about the U.S. military's ability to confront unanticipated threats. Bush will announce the decision during a national speech, in which aides said he will also embrace Army Gen. David H. Petraeus's plan to indefinitely suspend a drawdown of forces.

The twin decisions may set the course for U.S. policy in Iraq through the fall and perhaps for the rest of Bush's presidency....

The bottom line seems to be that after pulling out the extra forces Bush sent last year, the United States will keep about 140,000 troops in Iraq at least through the November presidential election....

But Bush's decision will affect only those troops sent to Iraq as of Aug. 1 or later, meaning that those already there still have to complete 15-month tours. Bobby Muller, president of Veterans for America, an advocacy group, said that nearly half of the Army's active-duty frontline units are currently deployed for 15 months, and that Bush's decision leaves them out.

And how will you know whether things are going well, well enough to expect any troop withdrawals before the end of the year? As Gen. David Petraeus made abundantly clear this week, it's not clear. It's a lack of clarity shared at the highest levels of the administration:

A senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the administration had abandoned the benchmarks [Congress set for Iraq] as a strict standard of progress because establishing a secure Iraq would also depend on factors other than political and military progress.

Over two days of testimony, General Petraeus repeatedly was asked to explain the conditions that would allow further withdrawals, but he answered that they were not based on some easily defined measurements.

Asked for elaboration, the senior administration official said, "It's a very hard concept to explain publicly because it doesn't feature a sort of setting of the dial. It features what we call a running assessment."

Bush is set to speak at 11:30 this morning.

Of all the innumerable times that lawmakers asked Gen. David Petraeus over the last two days for some indication of what success in Iraq is, this answer seemed as clear as any of them. At least in this answer, there was no reference to success being "conditions-based" or any mention of "battlefield geometry." Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL) asked "Please tell us, general, what is winning?"

"Ambassador Crocker and I, for what it's worth, have typically seen ourselves as minimalists. We're not after the Holy Grail in Iraq, we're not after Jeffersonian democracy," Petraeus responded. "We're after conditions that would allow our soldiers to disengage."

For those who've been watching the Iraq debate, this sort of "minimalism" is nothing new. After all, administration officials have been saying since the start that a "Jeffersonian democracy" isn't likely to take root in Iraq (even Paul Bremer said "We're not going to have a Jeffersonian democracy here" in 2003). But with Iraq, there never can be enough minimalism.

Transcript of the full exchange is below.

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Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) finally got his turn during today's Senate foreign relations committtee hearing and used it to question Ambassador Crocker and Gen. Petraeus on what "success" would be in Iraq, focusing on the strength of Al Qaeda in Iraq and Iranian influence as key benchmarks.

After questions about the status quo in Iraq of these two areas, Obama proceeded to ask Crocker and Petraeus whether that status quo could be called success if maintained without such a high level of U.S. troops in Iraq.

Here's video of Obama's questions:

His point, he said, was that the "definition of success is so high," such as wiping out AQI and eliminating any undue Iranian influence, then success would be unattainable. But that if the criteria for success was a "messy, sloppy status quo," not dissimilar to the current state of affairs, though without U.S. troops holding the country together, then that was attainable.

Such a state of affairs, Obama said, could be achieved with "measured, but increased pressure" on the Iraqis via troop withdrawals (he was keen to point out that "nobody is asking for a precipitous withdrawal") and a "diplomatic surge" in the region.

Here's video of Obama's conclusion:

"Our resources are finite," he said, and "when you have finite resources, you have to define goals tightly and modestly."

Crocker generally agreed with Obama's definition of success in Iraq ("this is hard and this is complicated"), though he did not stipulate to Obama's somewhat more modest characterization of what success would look like.

Text of Obama's comments below.

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Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN), the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, immediately cast a different tone on the Republican side than the one that prevailed throughout the earlier hearing, led by the ranking member on that committee, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ).

Earlier, McCain started from the assumption of what success means and seemed to take for granted the means of achieving it. Lugar's take was much different.

In his opening statement, Lugar offered a sweeping analysis of the situation in Iraq and concluded that today's hearing was actually much different than the one held last September:

At that time, the President was appealing to Congress to allow the surge to continue to create breathing space for a political accommodation. Today the questions are whether and how improvements in security can be converted into political gains that can stabilize Iraq despite the impending drawdown of U.S. troops. Simply appealing for more time to make progress is insufficient. The debate over how much progress we have made and whether we can make more is less illuminating than determining whether the Administration has a definable political strategy that recognizes the time limitations we face and seeks a realistic outcome designed to protect American vital interests.

At the moment, according to Lugar, the administration clearly has no "definable political strategy." He looks forward, he said, to discussing with Petraeus and Crocker "how the United States can define success and then achieve our vital objectives in Iraq."

Towards the end of this morning's Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) elicited the plainest assessment yet of the day from Gen. Petraeus.

Given the complexity of the situation in Iraq, Bayh wanted to know, "isn't it true that a fair amount of humility is in order in rendering judgments about the way forward in Iraq, that no one can speak with great confidence about what is likely to occur?"

Petraeus seemed to grow a bit irritated at the insinuation that he'd been painting an overly rosy picture. "It's why I've repeatedly noted that we haven't turned any corners, we haven't seen any lights at the end of the tunnel. The champagne bottle has been pushed to the back of the refrigerator. And the progress, while real, is fragile and is reversible," he replied.

Later, Petraeus again refused to venture any guess about when there might be further drawdowns of troops from Iraq after July.

A transcript of the exchange is below.

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Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) took her time today to begin with a statement emphasizing the toll the war is taking on the U.S. armed forces, a cost, she said, that ought to be weighed against the cost of staying in Iraq indefinitely. "It's time to begin the orderly process of removing our troops."

Here's video of that:

Clinton began by focusing her questioning on the coming long-term security agreement between Iraq and the U.S. Earlier in the hearing, Ambassador Ryan Crocker had been at pains to stress that "the agreement will not establish permanent bases in Iraq" and might actually prohibit them (whatever that is worth), and that the "agreement will not specify troop levels" or "tie the hands of the next administration." But the agreement would not go to Congress, he said.

Clinton, who's been pushing legislation that would force the administration to submit the agreement to the Senate, as is required of formal treaties, said that "seems odd to Americans," for the administration to cut such a deal without Congressional consent -- at the same time that the Iraqis might submit the agreement to its parliament.

Clinton also wanted to know what conditions might possibly have existed that would have caused Petraeus to not extend the current strategy. Petraeus answered by ticking off the factors involved in deciding, but added that "it's not a mathematical exercise."

Here are Clinton's questions:

Update: Transcript of Sen. Clinton's exchange with Petraeus and Crocker:

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Even more than Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) found it impossible to suppress his admiration for Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker. Petraeus deserves that fifth star, Graham said, and Crocker (who has devoted his career to public service in the Middle East) should go someplace not horrible (presumably far away from the Middle East):

Graham's comments:

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Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker have given an overall positive review of U.S. progress in Iraq today, but both have laden those statements with clear caveats. When asked about political reconciliation in Iraq, Crocker has tended to prefer characterizing it as "moving in the right direction."

But Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) thinks that all too much emphasis has been put on the caveats. Clearly criticizing the questioning by Democrats today, Lieberman said that "there's a kind of hear no progress in Iraq, see no progress in Iraq, and most of all, speak of no progress in Iraq."

Lieberman, at least, sees no harm in overstating the progress in Iraq: "The Iraqi political leadership has achieved a lot more political reconciliation and progress since September than the American political leadership has."

Finally, he seemed to indicate that if only Democrats would accept the clear success of the surge, we "can move to more success so we can bring more of our troops home."

Thereafter, Lieberman went into a kind of reprise of his questioning last September, wanting to know about Iran's activity in Iraq.

The transcript is below.

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Last time Gen. David Petraeus went up to Capitol Hill to give his big update, he wasn't 100% ready for prime time. That was most evident when Sen. John Warner (R-VA) asked if success in the Iraq war will make America safer. His response was a blunt "I don't know."

Today, Warner gave Petraeus the opportunity for a second bite of the apple. "Is all this sacrifice bringing about a more secure America?" Warner asked. And this time, Petraeus was ready -- with a mind-numbing battery of talking points, from which he was apparently reading:

Finally, Warner had to interrupt Petraeus, saying "my time on the clock is moving pretty quickly. It was a fairly simple question: Does that translate into a greater security for those of us at home?" He wanted an answer "just in simple language."

Finally, Petraeus came back with an assurance that "I do believe it is worth it."

A transcript of the exchange is below.

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Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) wanted more detail on those evaluations by Gen. Petraeus? How long will it be before U.S. troops begin to leave Iraq, he wanted to know? Three months? Six months?

"It could be right then," Petraeus answered, meaning after that 45 day evaluation period after July, or "it could be longer."

OK, Levin said, assuming that everything goes perfectly, how many U.S. troops would remain in Iraq at the end of the year? Petraeus didn't take the bait: "I can't give you an estimate on that."

Levin also grilled Petraeus on Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Basra offensive. Was it really all on him?

"Would you say that Maliki followed your advice?" Levin wanted to know. "No, sir.... there's no question but that it could have been better planned and that the preparations could have been better."

Update: Here's Levin's questioning:

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You can read Crocker's here. We'll have Petraeus' shortly.

Update: Here are briefing slides provided by Multi-National Force-Iraq that illustrate some of the security gains Petraeus is talking about.

Update: Here is Petraeus' opening statement:

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Gen. David Petraeus' opening statement was no surprise either, with the general providing a battery of slides showing that U.S. forces have made great strides in curbing violence, building up the Iraqi forces, etc. -- but adding the necessary caveat that "innumerable challenges remain."

Towards the end, Petraeus said that starting in July, when the troop level will return to its pre-surge level, he would begin a "45 day period of consolidation and evaluation." After that period, he'd make further recommendations "as conditions permit." That arrangement does not allow a "set withdrawal timetable," he said, but the process would continue with recommendations (more of the same or draw down troops) made every 45 days.

Update: Here's how Petraeus put it:

After weighing these factors, I recommended to my chain of command that we continue the drawdown in the surge to the combat forces and that upon the withdrawal of the last surge brigade combat team in July, we undertake a 45-day period of consolidation and evaluation. At the end of that period, we will commence a process of assessment to examine the conditions on the ground and over time determine when we can make recommendations for further reductions. This process will be continuous, with recommendations for further reductions made as conditions permit.

This approach does not allow establishment of a set withdrawal timetable, however it does provide the flexibility those of us on the ground need to preserve the still-fragile security gains our troops have fought so far and sacrifice so much to achieve.

Senate Armed Services Committee Ranking Member John McCain's (R-AZ) opening statement was no surprise (except for a brief interruption by protestors in the audience).

Here's video:

Because the U.S. did not "choose to retreat," we now have a successful strategy in Iraq, the surge. And although "much more needs to be done... today it is possible to talk with real hope and optimism about the future of Iraq.... Success is within reach."

If we pull out, he said, Iraq might descend into genocide and become a haven for terrorists and even "draw us into a far more costly war" as a result. "Congress must not choose to lose in Iraq," he concluded, we "should choose instead to succeed."

Update: The full statement is below.

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Do you remember that chart?

It was the most memorable of the briefing slides Gen. David Petraeus took with him to Capitol Hill last September. And then, as now, it's all about the question marks.

Today, Petraeus is expected to tell Congress that we ought to wait and see before further reducing troop levels. Petraeus will tout the success of the surge, while at the same time acknowledging failures that require a continued U.S. presence in Iraq. Sure, violence has dropped, but as The New York Times reports this morning, "[a]fter an overall decline in attacks against civilians and American and Iraqi security forces in Baghdad over the past several months, the number more than doubled in March from the previous month." But, on the other hand, that recent violence is all the more reason to delay further troop withdrawals, isn't it?

And The Washington Post is ready for a similar theme:

Petraeus is expected to cite Iranian assistance to Mahdi Army forces as another reason to carefully consider any further troop withdrawals. But U.S. intelligence officials have noted that Iran has also provided training and weapons to all Shiite militias, including those allied with Maliki. "One reality of Basra is that you have Iranian-influenced organizations fighting each other," said one intelligence official. "On multiple levels, Iran has its hooks" in all of them, the official added.

We'll be providing continuing updates on the hearings throughout the day.

Note: Here's one thing to watch for. You can be sure that this time around, Petraeus will have a better answer to this question.

No doubt that good news about Iraq has been hard to come by lately for the administration. The failure of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's offensive against the Shiite militia of Moqtada al-Sadr in Basra and Baghdad still stings, and the postmortems by The New York Times and Washington Post are not pretty. The Times also reports this morning that "more than 1,000 Iraqi soldiers and policemen either refused to fight or simply abandoned their posts" during the fighting last week, a toll that features "dozens of officers, including at least two senior field commanders in the battle."

Earlier this week, just after the offensive went kablooey, intelligence officials delivered a new National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq to Congress. It's a bit of tentative good news amid all the bad. If the administration has its way, however, you'll never see a declassified version of it. Director of National Intelligence Mike "public debate of intelligence issues kills Americans" McConnell will do what he can to ensure that. Sens. Carl Levin (D-MI) and Ted Kennedy (D-MA) have begun a push for the administration to release a declassified version of the report, writing a letter earlier this week to McConnell earlier this week (see below).

The general conclusion of the report is evident from the headlines this morning. "Report: Security in Iraq is improving," says the AP. "U.S. Study Finds Progress in Iraq, but Fragile Security and Potential for Terror Attacks," says the Times. A senior administration official tells The Wall Street Journal, "The NIE update confirmed that the surge strategy the president announced in January of last year is working. There's more work to be done, but progress has obviously been made."

And that pretty much seems to be the scope of it. Democrats who have read it are mightily unimpressed and say that it's just part of the broader PR push which will culminate in next week's testimony by Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker.

As Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) puts it, "The stuff that was positive, they emphasized. The negative, they stated, but deemphasized." Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) complains that it doesn't cover most of the stuff you'd want it to cover: "It's much less insightful than other, recent products and focuses narrowly on counterterrorism efforts in Iraq and the progress of the Iraqi leadership."

And Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ), a member of the House intelligence committee, is mighty suspicious -- both of the report's content and its timing: "One might ask whether the timing of the release and the apparent departure from usual procedures means this is more of a political document than an intelligence document," he tells the Journal.

As the Journal points out, "intelligence reports are often delayed by major developments that could affect the assessments, such as the Sadr fighting." This report, however, was not delayed, and there is no mention of the failed offensive in the report. It has, however, come right in time for the Petraeus and Crocker hearings next week.

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We've been wondering whether the public will be seeing the results of the intelligence community's hard work on assessing the situation in Iraq. Turns out (not surprisingly, no). Spencer is the bearer of bad news:

For weeks, analysts within the 16-agency U.S. intelligence community have been toiling to complete an assessment of the situation in Iraq. This morning, it finally went to the Hill: the Senate and House intelligence committees, and the leadership in both chambers, are the proud owners of an update to the August 23, 2007 National Intelligence Estimate. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee received a briefing on it. But you'll never see it.

According to an administration official with knowledge of the intelligence process, this morning's intelligence document isn't itself a National Intelligence Estimate. "It's not a formal report," the official said, "it's more or less an assessment memo, an update to policy makers."

So does the intelligence community think that the political situation in Iraq is in a hopeless deadlock? That the security gains of the past few months are meaningful and lasting? Well, I guess we'll just have to take the word of Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker when they testify before Congress next week.