You Call That the Center?

"'Tell Congress you know the truth,' Edwards says. 'They have the power to end this war and you expect them to use it. When the president asks for more money and more time, Congress needs to tell him he only gets one choice -- a firm timeline for withdrawal.'"

About Those Troop Levels

So exactly how many troops would be left in Iraq after Bush rolls back the surge? While most journalists have been reporting 130,000, Nancy A. Youssef and Renee Schoof write for McClatchy Newspapers: "Military officials familiar with troop deployments told McClatchy Newspapers, however, that as many as 140,000 troops would remain in Iraq, depending on the size of the brigades and how many soldiers remain to support them."

In an interview with NPR's Steve Inskeep, Petraeus equivocated on the numbers.

Inskeep: "I want to ask about the reduction in troops that you've talked about. I want to first make sure that I understand the numbers that you're talking about. It's been said that what you've described is a reduction in 30,000 troops. Is that, in fact, what you --"

Petraeus: "What I've described is a reduction of five brigade combat teams, Army brigade combat teams, the Marine Expeditionary Unit, which actually is coming out this month without replacement, and two Marine battalions. Now, we want to take out other --"

Inskeep: "That's a little less than --"

Petraeus: "Well, we have to do the math, candidly. We've got -- I have not yet said how many thousands of troops."

Inskeep: "So when people have said 30,000, they're not quite accurate. It might be 30,000 -- it might be quite a bit less."

Petraeus: "Well, we've got to determine what it can be."

Petraeus Redux

Peter Baker and Thomas E. Ricks write in The Washington Post: "Like it or not, he has become a political player, and more than ever before, the U.S. venture in Iraq has become his own."

One of Petraeus's most intriguing congressional testimony comments came after Republican Senator John Warner asked him if the Iraq war is making Americans safer. "Sir, I don't know, actually," Petraeus replied.

Was he distancing himself from Bush's overheated and highly suspect assertion that the terrorists there "will follow us home"? Or was it just a slip?