But I thought the president said we didn't discuss failure

Blumenthal reports that the Pentagon is planning for the failure and fallout of "the surge," and nobody involved thinks "the surge" will succeed.

The planners, the guys responsible for projecting, join the intelligence community in judging that "the surge" will fail, and yet it still goes on....

Deep within the bowels of the Pentagon, policy planners are conducting secret meetings to discuss what to do in the worst-case scenario in Iraq about a year from today if and when President Bush's escalation of more than 20,000 troops fails, a participant in those discussions told me. None of those who are taking part in these exercises, shielded from the public view and the immediate scrutiny of the White House, believes that the so-called surge will succeed. On the contrary, everyone thinks it will not only fail to achieve its aims but also accelerate instability by providing a glaring example of U.S. incapacity and incompetence.

(Question: Did this come to Blumenthal from a Pentagon source? A dissenting administration official? Just curious.)