The withdrawal of U.S. troops will start more slowly than the timetable Pres. Obama laid down during the campaign, and when the withdrawal is complete, up to 50,000 U.S. troops will remain in Iraq, apparently indefiinitely.

Although it is possible to reconcile these facts with the nuances of statements Obama made as a candidate and during the transition, the developments will disappoint  those who believed they had elected a peace candidate. Nonetheless, the executive director of MoveOn.org, a prominent anti-Iraq War group, says activists are willing to give Obama the benefit of the doubt.

No administration official is yet putting his or her name on these facts, the plans are being described on a not-for-attribution basis to Washington reporters. The most authoritiative current version is in this morning's New York Times. The facts are attributed to administration and Pentagon officials who are not named.

I have not seen any discussion of how this new plan is to be reconciled with the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), negotiated between the Bush Administration and the Iraqi government and ratified by the Iraqi Parliament (but not the U.S. Congress) late last year. That agreement states unambiguously (Article 24) that:

"All United States Forces shall withdraw from all Iraqi territory no later than December 31, 2011."

The Iraqi electorate is supposed to have a national referendum on the agreement this year (by July), with the understanding that if the SOFA is not approved, the deadline for total U.S. withdrawal would move UP to July 2010. It was during a discussion of the SOFA in Baghdad between ex-Pres. Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki that a protester threw shoes at Bush.

There may be loopholes in the SOFA, or perhaps it will just ignored.

There were plenty of loopholes built into Pres. Obama's campaign position on the war. He always said his goal was to "end the war responsibly," and start a phased withdrawal that would get "combat troops" out of Iraq within 16 months. Without quibbling over the precise number of months, the key loophole was the word "combat" in front of troops. Obama did say, when pressed, that his commitment left open the possibility and even the likelihood of "residual" forces remaining in Iraq, indefinitely for a specified list of missions, including training Iraq troops, protecting the U.S. embassy and U.S. civilians and to make targeted attacks on terrorists. That last one, of course, always sounded a bit like "combat," although the precise meaning is ultimately semantic. Newsday.com now reports (also quoting unnamed sources at the Pentagon) that some of the "residual" troops "would still have a combat role fighting suspected terrorists."

Obama has been hinting for some time that a simple, straightforward reading of his campaign rhetoric about Iraq would be naive.

On MSNBC's Rachel Maddow show, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she had expected that the residual forces would be more in the 15,000-20,000 range and she needs to hear more about what missions would justify the bigger numbers. She also noted that U.S. troops have supposedly been training Iraqi troops for years now. She didn't say, but I do, that there will always be new Iraqi troops that need to be trained, but if this will always be a U.S. responsibility, someone should level with us about that. Otherwise, perpetual training looks like a fig leaf for perpetual occupation.

In an op-ed, Ken Pollack and Michael O'Hanlon of Brookings argue for "flexibility" as to dates and numbers for the troop withdrawals, suggestiing that U.S. troops may be necessary to prevent a Kurd-Arab civil war over oil-rich Kirkuk.

All of this gives me the creeps.

Obama is expected to say more about the specifics Friday.