Success Metrics

During a press briefing in Afghanistan earlier today, Defense Secretary Robert Gates was asked how the U.S. military will measure success in that country at the end of this calendar year. His response:

Well, one of the things -- I mean, this is one of the things that we've been asking of -- in the assignment basically given to General Petraeus and the Afghans and General Rodriguez and so on, is, okay, what are the benchmarks, what are the criteria by which we will judge we are making progress?

Some of those are fairly evident.  Others they're still developing.  One that obviously is important is, is the ANA meeting its goals in terms of recruitment and retention?  How about the quality of the ANA as well as the quantity?  The same thing with the Afghan National Police.

So those are some -- two of the measures that are obviously important.  But they are in the process of developing the criteria or the -- the criteria by which we will be able to assess whether or not we're making progress.