"White House is incensed by leaks that didn't originate in the White House" ... to send 34,000 more troops to Afghanistan

McClatchy's, here

".... A U.S. military official used the term "decisional" to describe Monday evening's meeting among Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Gates, Clinton, National Security Adviser Jim Jones, Eikenberry and senior U.S. military commanders.

The administration's plan contains "off-ramps," points starting next June at which Obama could decide to continue the flow of troops, halt the deployments and adopt a more limited strategy or "begin looking very quickly at exiting" the country, depending on political and military progress, one defense official said.

"We have to start showing progress within six months on the political side or military side or that's it," the U.S. defense official said. It's "not just how we get people there, but what's the strategy for getting them out," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Monday.......

The plan adopted by Obama would fall well short of the 80,000 troops McChrystal suggested in August ...... The U.S. Army's recently revised counterinsurgency manual estimates that an all-out counterinsurgency campaign in a country with Afghanistan's population would require about 600,000 troops..."