The U.S. government is trying to determine now whether or not the  seven Americans reportedly being held hostage by Islamic militants in Algeria are still alive.

Several reports Thursday said that 25 hostages escaped and six were killed when Algerian forces mounted an operation to free the hostages in the remote desert gas plant where they were being held.

Three more hostages were reportedly freed by the Algerian army in a subsequent operation. A total of 41 hostages have been held since Wednesday morning, as part of what military groups called retaliation for the French attacks on Islamist groups in Mali that began last weekend, according to a statement by one of the militant groups Al Mulathameen, which has links to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

At Thursday's White House press briefing, Press Secretary Jay Carney said there's no definitive information on whether the Americans are among the dead or the living.

"We are in contact with Algerian authorities and our international partners as well as with BP's security office in London. Unfortunately, the best information we have at this time, as I said, indicates that U.S. citizens are among the hostages. But we don't have, at this point, more details to provide to you. We're certainly concerned about reports of loss of life and are seeking clarity from the government of Algeria," he said.

"But at this point you can't say whether those Americans are alive or dead?" a reporter asked Carney.

"I just can only say that we are deeply concerned about any loss of innocent life and are seeking clarity from the government of Algeria," he said.

Carney declined to confirm reports that at least one unarmed U.S. drone was deployed to the skies above the Algerian gas facility in support of the rescue operations there. He also declined to confirm that the hostage takers have links to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) or say whether or not the Algerian government consulted Washington before carrying out the deadly rescue mission.

"Our priority is determining the status of the Americans involved and gaining a full understanding of what took place," he said. "We are seeking clarity from the Algerian government about this matter, and obviously we are focused most intently on the status of Americans."

The United States is proving intelligence support and airlift support to the French troops operating in Mali, helping them move troops and equipment, Carney said. The French have made several other requests for U.S. support that the administration is still considering.

President Barack Obama is being regularly updated on the Algeria situation but hasn't gotten involved personally by making any phone calls to world leaders, Carney said. AQIM does not threaten the United States directly but does threaten U.S. interests, he said.

"We work with our allies to counter the activities of AQIM," said Carney. "And clearly, AQIM and affiliated extremist groups do pose a threat to our interests in that region, even if they have not posed a direct threat to the homeland like al Qaeda central in Afghanistan and Pakistan or al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula."Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke with Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal Wednesday and is expected to speak with him again today.

"The phone call was, as you can imagine, a hundred percent about this situation, about our willingness to be helpful about what might be needed, about the desire to keep lines of communication open," State Department Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said today.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC) on Jan. 23 regarding the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, and Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) will have his nomination hearing to replace her Jan. 24.

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Kerry presumptive successor on the SFRC, will preside over both hearings, Senate aides told The Cable. Clinton will testify at 9 a.m. in the spacious Hart Senate Office Building Hearing room, rather than the more constrained space in the Dirksen Senate Office Building that the SFRC regularly uses, to allow more media and onlookers to attend.

"Foreign Relations Committee sent notices to senators tonight that Kerry's nomination hearing will be Thurs, Jan. 24th at 10:00 a.m. Senator Menendez will preside; however, Kerry will remain committee chairman until confirmed," a Senate aide told The Cable late Wednesday evening. "Also, the committee announced that the Benghazi hearing with Secretary Clinton will be Wed, Jan. 23 at 9:00 am. Menendez will preside over this hearing as well."

The House Foreign Affairs Committee, led by Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA) has already announced that Clinton will testify there the afternoon of Jan. 23.

The title of Clinton's SFRC hearing will be, "Benghazi:  The Attacks and the Lessons Learned."

Former Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel's nomination hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee to be the next secretary of defense will be Jan. 31.

The State Department's head spokeswoman said Wednesday that the State Department cannot corroborate reports that the Syrian military used chemical weapons against its own people in the city of Homs last month.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland commented extensively at Wednesday's briefing on The Cable's exclusive Tuesday report that a secret cable sent last week from the U.S. consulate in Istanbul had relayed evidence that chemical weapons were used in Homs on Dec. 23. The cable, signed by the U.S. consul general in Istanbul, Scott Frederic Kilner, outlined the results of the consulate's investigation based on a series of interviews with activists, doctors, and defectors, and made what an administration official who reviewed the cable called a "compelling case" that Assad's military forces had used a deadly form of poison gas.

On Tuesday, State Department Spokesman Patrick Ventrell told The Cable, "As you know, the United States closely monitors Syria's proliferation-sensitive materials and facilities, and we believe Syria's chemical weapons stockpile remains secured by the Syrian government. We have been clear that if Assad's regime makes the tragic mistake of using chemical weapons or failing to secure them, it will be held accountable."

On Tuesday evening, after the report was published, National Security Spokesman Tommy Vietor issued a statement that said, "The reporting we have seen from media sources regarding alleged chemical weapons incidents in Syria has not been consistent with what we believe to be true about the Syrian chemical weapons program."

Today, Nuland publicly acknowledged the existence of the secret cable for the first time but said that The Cable's report "did not accurately convey the anecdotal information that we had received from a third party regarding an alleged incident in Syria in December."

"At the time we looked into the allegations that were made and the information that we had received, and we found no credible evidence to corroborate or to confirm that chemical weapons were used," she said.

The Cable's report said that the cable in question had conveyed information from internal sources inside Syria claiming that the chemical Agent 15, also known by its NATO term BZ, was responsible for the deaths and injuries in Homs. The Cable also interviewed two doctors who treated victims on the scene, both of whom said that they were not claiming the gas was Agent 15 but that they were sure it was a chemical weapon, rather than tear gas, based on the severity of the effects and the nature of the symptoms.

Nuland said that the State Department receives reports from embassies and consulates on such incidents regularly, but that in this case, the department could not confirm the reports of chemical weapons use and therefore determined there was no evidence of such use.

"It is a responsibility of our embassies and consulates around the world, no matter what kind of anecdotal information you have, to report it. That doesn't necessarily mean that either at the time or over the longer term it is considered credible by us," she said. "When this particular message came in from consulate Istanbul, we took it seriously as we do with all such anecdotal reporting, and concluded at the time that we couldn't corroborate it; we haven't been able to corroborate it since either."

Reporters at the briefing pressed Nuland on why the State Department was able to say today it believed no chemical weapons were used in Syria but Tuesday they were unable to make that assertion. Nuland said it took the government time to deal with the information because much of it was classified.

Nuland also asserted that The Cable didn't give the State Department enough time to respond to a request for comment.

"Sometimes we ask for more time to get our ducks in a row, and sometimes we are granted that by members of the fourth estate, and sometimes we are not. So we were able to give the response that we had last night, but I am able to give a more full answer today. And had the journalist waited for a more full answer, he would have had it," Nuland said, referring directly to your humble Cable guy. "We had asked for some time. We didn't get that time."

In fact, The Cable gave the State Department as much time as it needed to respond to our request for comment, even extending our deadline at the request of the State Department public affairs shop. Ventrell's comment for the original report was sent more than 6 hours after our initial query.

Syrian activists say that the circumstances surrounding the deaths in Homs make it impossible to be sure if or what chemical weapons were used, because of the horrible conditions there, the lack of access, and the lack of medical forensic equipment.

"It's difficult to know for sure what was used so all you have is whatever people saw and the symptoms," said Sasha Ghosh-Siminoff, executive director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force. "If it is true that the regime used chemical weapons, they did it smartly by doing it in Homs, where it's hard to get to and hard to verify anything."

The Democrats on the House Foreign Affairs Committee have chosen their leaders in a process that featured a dramatic behind-the-scenes battle for the Middle East subcommittee.

Ranking Democrat Eliot Engel (D-NY) alluded to the controversy only obliquely in his statement following Democratic members' closed-door membership meeting Tuesday. "The Democratic members of the Foreign Affairs Committee represent a wide range of views and experiences, and we will work together to help ensure that U.S. foreign policy best serves our national interests," Engel said. "I especially want to offer a warm welcome to our new members who will play a prominent and vital role on our committee. I also look forward to working with Chairman Ed Royce (R-CA) in a spirit of bipartisanship to address the important foreign policy challenges facing our nation."

But Engel might have some diplomatic work to do within his own caucus first. The battle for the Middle East subcommittee was between Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL) and Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA),  Sherman, the third ranking Democrat on the committee, seemed in line to take over the Middle East and North Africa subcommittee., having recently defeated longtime HFAC stalwart Howard Berman in a bitterly contested Democrat-on-Democrat race.

As of Tuesday morning, Sherman seemed to think he had the position. When subcommittee chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) said Sherman would be the new ranking Democrat on the subcommittee at a Tuesday morning news conference, Sherman agreed with her. But by the time the committee meeting was held, Sherman realized he didn't have the votes.

"Deutch pulled off a coup and unseated Sherman," one source inside the meeting told The Cable. "Sherman had no idea Deutch has been mounting a whip operation to take the subcommittee from him."

Two sources confirmed that Deutch called Sherman before the meeting to tell him he had the votes. At the meeting, Sherman tried to lobby committee members anyway. But he soon realized he would not win, so when time came to officially bid for the post, Sherman demurred.

"He knew he didn't have the votes so he decided to head off the humiliation of a vote by taking his old subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade," the source said.

Sherman's Chief of Staff Don MacDonald said that Sherman was genuinely conflicted about which subcommittee to bid for and that his staff was giving him different advice on how to proceed.

"Brad spent little time lobbying colleagues. Deutch lobbied very hard. Brad is not unhappy with the terrorism subcommittee," McDonald said. "Brad has not held himself out as ranking member for the Middle East subcommittee. We may have said it was likely he would bid for that. In the end, it was a tough decision."

Deutch, whose chief of staff happens to be named Josh Rogin (no relation), issued a statement after the meeting setting out his broad agenda as the new subcommittee ranking member.

"There is no region of the world more significant to the national security of the United States than the Middle East, and to have earned the confidence of my colleagues to serve as Ranking Member is truly humbling," he said. "We face enormously consequential foreign policy challenges in the Middle East, from how we eliminate the Iranian nuclear threat and combat terrorism to how we strengthen Israel's security and support Israel's ongoing quest for peace, to how we advance democracy, gender equality and human rights in the region. I am honored to have this opportunity to help shape our responses to these challenges, and I look forward to working with my friend and Subcommittee Chair Ileana Ros-Lehtinen."

Ros-Lehtinen has been working with Sherman on a number of Iran related bills and seemed to have preferred him as her subcommittee leadership partner.

The other ranking Democrats chosen Tuesday were Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA) for the subcommittee on Africa, global health, global human rights, and international organizations, Rep. William Keating (D-MA) for the subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, and emerging threats, Rep. Eni F.H. Faleomavaega (D-Samoa) for the subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, Rep. Albio Sires (D-NJ) for the subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere.

A secret State Department cable has concluded that the Syrian military likely used chemical weapons against its own people in a deadly attack last month, The Cable has learned.

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United States diplomats in Turkey conducted a previously undisclosed, intensive investigation into claims that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons, and made what an Obama administration official who reviewed the cable called a "compelling case" that Assad's military forces had used a deadly form of poison gas.

The cable, signed by the U.S. consul general in Istanbul, Scott Frederic Kilner, and sent to State Department headquarters in Washington last week, outlined the results of the consulate's investigation into reports from inside Syria that chemical weapons had been used in the city of Homs on Dec. 23.

The consul general's report followed a series of interviews with activists, doctors, and defectors, in what the administration official said was one of the most comprehensive efforts the U.S. government has made to investigate claims by internal Syrian sources. The investigation included a meeting between the consulate staff and Mustafa al-Sheikh, a high-level defector who once was a major general in Assad's army and key official in the Syrian military's WMD program.

An Obama administration official who reviewed the document, which was classified at the "secret" level, detailed its contents to The Cable. "We can't definitely say 100 percent, but Syrian contacts made a compelling case that Agent 15 was used in Homs on Dec. 23," the official said.

The use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime would cross the "red line" President Barack Obama first established in an Aug. 20 statement. "We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus. That would change my equation," Obama said.

To date, the administration has not initiated any major policy changes in response to the classified cable, but a Deputies Committee meeting of top administration officials is scheduled for this week.

The report confirms the worst fears of officials who are frustrated by the current policy, which is to avoid any direct military assistance to the Syrian rebels and limit U.S. aid to sporadic deliveries of humanitarian and communications equipment.

Many believe that Assad is testing U.S. red lines.

"This reflects the concerns of many in the U.S. government that the regime is pursuing a policy of escalation to see what they can get away with as the regime is getting more desperate," the administration official said.

The consulate's investigation was facilitated by BASMA, an NGO the State Department has hired as one of its implementing partners inside Syria. BASMA connected consular officials with witnesses to the incident and other first-hand information.

The official warned that if the U.S. government does not react strongly to the use of chemical weapons in Homs, Assad may be emboldened to escalate his use of such weapons of mass destruction.

"It's incidents like this that lead to a mass-casualty event," the official said.

Activist and doctors on the ground in Homs have been circulating evidence of the Dec. 23 incident over the past three weeks in an attempt to convince the international community of its veracity. An Arabic-language report circulated by the rebels' Homs medical committee detailed the symptoms of several of the victims who were brought to a makeshift field hospital inside the city and claims that the victims suffered severe effects of inhaling poisonous gas.

Activists have also been circulating videos of the victims on YouTube and Facebook. In one of the videos, victims can be seen struggling for breath and choking on their own vomit. (More videos, which are graphic, can be found here, here, here, here, here and here.)

Experts say the symptoms match the effects of Agent 15, known also by its NATO code BZ, which is a CX-level incapacitating agent that is controlled under schedule 2 of the Chemical Weapons Convention, to which Syria is not a party.

"The symptoms of an incapacitating agent are temporary. If someone is exposed to BZ, they are likely to be confused, perhaps to hallucinate," said Amy Smithson, a senior fellow with the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. "While it is not good news that a chemical agent of any kind may have been used in the Syrian conflict, this Agent 15 is certainly on the less harmful end of the spectrum of chemical warfare agents believed to be in the Syrian arsenal."

The Cable spoke with two doctors who were on the scene in Homs on Dec. 23 and treated the victims. Both doctors said that the chemical weapon used in the attack may not have been Agent 15, but they are sure it was a chemical weapon, not a form of tear gas. The doctors attributed five deaths and approximately 100 instances of severe respiratory, nervous system, and gastrointestinal ailments to the poison gas.

"It was a chemical weapon, we are sure of that, because tear gas can't cause the death of five people," said Dr. Nashwan Abu Abdo, a neurologist who spoke with The Cable from an undisclosed location inside of Homs.

Abdo said the chemical agent was delivered by a tank shell and that the range of symptoms varied based on the victim's proximity to the poison. The lightly affected people exhibited gastrointestinal symptoms, nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain, he said. Victims who received a higher concentration of the poison, in addition to the gastrointestinal symptoms, showed respiratory symptoms as well.

"The main symptom of the respiratory ailments was bronchial secretions. This particular symptom was the cause of the death of all of the people," he said. "All of them died choking on their own secretions."

The doctors said their conclusion that the poison was a chemical agent and not tear gas was based on three factors: the suddenness of the deaths of those who were directly exposed, the large number of people affected, and the fact that many victims returned with recurring symptoms more than 12 hours after they had been treated, meaning that the poison had settled either in their nervous systems or fat tissue.

"They all had miosis -- pinpoint pupils. They also had generalized muscle pain. There were also bad symptoms as far as their central nervous system. There were generalized seizures and some patients had partial seizures. This actually is proof that the poison was able to pass the blood-brain barrier," Abdo said. "In addition, there was acute mental confusion presented by hallucinations, delusions, personality changes, and behavioral changes."

The doctors on the scene said they were not able to pinpoint the poison because they lacked the advanced laboratory equipment needed. They took blood, hair, saliva, and urine samples, but those samples are no longer viable for testing because too much time has passed, they said.

"We took many samples, we kept them, but we cannot get them anywhere because we are in the besieged Homs area," he said. "We are not 100 percent sure what poison was used, but we can say with firm statement that it was not tear gas, that's for sure."

The State Department, in response to inquiries from The Cable, declined to comment on the secret cable from Istanbul or say whether or not chemical weapons were used in the Homs attack, but said that the administration believes Assad's chemical weapons are secure.

"I'm not going to comment on the alleged content of a classified cable," State Department Spokesman Patrick Ventrell told The Cable. "As you know, the United States closely monitors Syria's proliferation-sensitive materials and facilities, and we believe Syria's chemical weapons stockpile remains secured by the Syrian government. We have been clear that if Assad's regime makes the tragic mistake of using chemical weapons or failing to secure them, it will be held accountable."

Shifting red lines

The White House's threats to react to Assad's WMD activity have softened over time. In Obama's Aug. 20 statement, he indicated that "a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around" would trigger U.S. action.

Obama then shifted his warning to Assad about red lines in December, after intelligence reports stated that the Syrian regime had moved some precursor chemicals out of storage and mixed them, making them easier to deploy. Now, Obama's red line is that the United States will react if Syria uses these weapons.

"The use of chemical weapons is and would be totally unacceptable," Obama said Dec. 3, directing his comments at Assad. "If you make the tragic mistake of using these weapons, there will be consequences and you will be held accountable." That same day, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton added: "we are certainly planning to take action if that eventuality were to occur."

Outside analysts worry that the administration's red line may have shifted again.

"Given the fact you have that in a cable, this indicates that the Obama administration may not simply jump into the conflict because chemical agents are used," said Andrew Tabler, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "Assad has a much better idea now of what he can do and get away with."

"This shows that actually the red line on chemical weapons is not clear and that the regime may be able to use some chemical agents, and the response might not be immediate," he said.

On Jan. 11, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey said that the U.S. government and the international community doesn't have the capability to prevent Assad from using chemical weapons if he chooses to do so.

"The act of preventing the use of chemical weapons would be almost unachievable... because you would have to have such clarity of intelligence, you know, persistent surveillance, you'd have to actually see it before it happened, and that's -- that's unlikely, to be sure," Dempsey said. "I think that Syria must understand by now that the use of chemical weapons is unacceptable. And to that extent, it provides a deterrent value. But preventing it, if they decide to use it, I think we would be reacting."

Abdo, the Syrian neurologist, said that the doctors treating civilians inside Homs have run out of even the basic medicines they have been using to bring a level of comfort to the victims, such as the drug atropine.

"We hope this information will reach the people in the American government so maybe they will help us," he said. "If the regime does this one more time, we don't have the antidote in our hands anymore and we can't treat it. It's very urgent."

The French government has made a number of requests for U.S. assistance for its intervention in Mali, but the Obama administration won't say if it has decided to use U.S. military assets to help French forces fighting there.

Several reports Monday said the Obama administration was already moving to aid the French military intervention in Mali, which began over the weekend, by readying surveillance drones and intelligence assets in the region. French airplanes struck deep inside Mali Sunday as part of the new campaign to aid local forces that are trying to take back control over large swathes of the country from Islamic extremist groups, including Ansar Dine and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb (AQIM).

The U.S. position for months had been to urge caution when considering intervention, which could provoke backlash. U.S. U.N. ambassador Susan Rice reportedly once called a previous plan for ECOWAS to train Malian government forces in Southern Mali to retake the North "crap" (Rice's office disputes that report but maintains the plan would not have been likely to succeed). But now that the French have gone in, the United States seems poised to help.

"We share the French goal of denying terrorists a safe haven. We are in consultation with the French now on a number of requests that they have made for support. We are reviewing the requests that they have made, but I don't have any decisions to announce yet today," said State Department Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland.

Notably, she did not say the decision is yet to be made, only that the administration is not ready to tell the public.

The U.S. government wants the Economic Community Of West African States (ECOWAS) to speed its own deployment of troops into Mali and ECOWAS leaders will meet on the issue Wednesday, Nuland said. She added that the United States is prepared to send teams from the Africa Contingency Operations Training & Assistance (ACOTA) program there this week. ACOTA is a State Department program funded through the office of peace keeping operations.

The United States won't be providing direct military support to the Mali government forces, only ECOWAS and possibly French forces, Nuland said. The European Union could provide such support and will hold a foreign ministers' meeting on the issue Jan. 17.

"We are not in a position to support the Malian military directly until we have democratic processes restored by way of an election in Mali," Nuland said. "And we very much believe that there is no purely security solution to the problems in Mali."

The United States is also pushing, on a parallel track, dialogue between all stakeholders who are not engaged in active terrorism. The goal is for elections to happen in April.

Nuland also acknowledged that AQIM forces in Mali are better trained and equipped than previously thought.

"We've been clear about that all along that we think AQIM is playing a significant role in this," she said.

Some reporters at today's State Department briefing noted that the French also struck first in Libya, after which the United States joined the fight. Nuland rejected the notion that France is dragging America into another war in North Africa.

"We'll make our own national decisions now with regard to the kinds of support that France may need that we'd be willing to offer," she said.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-MA) will not chair Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's hearing on the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, which is expected to take place next week.

Kerry is in the unique position of being the chairman of the committee before which he will testify as part of his confirmation process to replace Clinton in Foggy Bottom. Although no final dates have been confirmed, Clinton is expected to testify on Benghazi Jan. 22, and Kerry's confirmation hearing is expected to happen as soon as Jan. 23. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Kerry's presumptive successor as SFRC chairman, is expected to chair both hearings.

"Kerry will not preside over the Benghazi hearing because he doesn't want to put his colleagues in an awkward situation. Also, he already presided over a Benghazi hearing last month," a committee aide told The Cable. "Senator Kerry will remain SFRC chair until he is confirmed."

Committee sources told The Cable that Kerry's decision not to resign as committee chair before he is confirmed is based on two calculations. First of all, he doesn't want to appear presumptive, just in case he is not confirmed, although he is widely expected to sail through. Secondly, if for some reason he is not confirmed, Kerry would want to retain his committee chairmanship as a fallback plan.

The musical chairs at SFRC have become a complicated dance for the committee staff, some of whom are helping Kerry to prepare for his hearing and some of whom are helping the rest of the committee prepare to vet Kerry. The State Department is also prepping Kerry for his hearing, and the nominee has been spending a lot of time at the State Department for briefings, but his staff is leading the preparations. Menendez's staff is assisting in the preparation for the Kerry hearing as well, committee sources said.

SFRC ranking Republican Bob Corker (R-TN) said last week he thinks the Clinton hearing will take place on Jan. 22.

"I had some very good conversations with her chief of staff," Corker told MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Jan. 8. "My sense is, Andrea, that her hearing probably will take place the morning of the 22nd... I think they feel she's going to be healthy enough to come in that day."

Clinton is preparing for the hearing now. "The secretary is going through all the steps this department is taking to implement the recommendations of the Accountability Review Board," State Department Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said today.

Over at State, speculation abounds about who Kerry may or may not bring with him if and when he moves over to State. The conventional wisdom is that many officials close to Clinton will depart, but some of them may stay, meaning that Kerry might not bring in as many of his own people as Clinton did back in 2009.

There's also concern that the White House might try to populate State with current and former NSC officials as a bid to assert more control over State. Clinton had secured 100 percent control over personnel assignments as part of her deal with President Barack Obama when she accepted the secretary of state job. Kerry has no such arrangement.

President Barack Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai met Friday at the White House, after which both leaders outlined the several unanswered questions about the future of America's role in Afghanistan.

Obama hosted Karzai for a bilateral meeting and a working lunch at the White House Friday. Senior U.S. officials in attendance included Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Chief of Staff Jack Lew, National Security Advisor Tom Donilon, Ambassador to Afghanistan James Cunningham, Deputy Counsel Avril Haines, Deputy National Security Advisor Doug Lute, Acting Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan David Pearce, and NSC Senior Director Jeff Eggers.

After the lunch, at a Friday afternoon press conference with Karzai, Obama announced that the two leaders had agreed to move up the date when the final tranche of Afghan territory would be handed over to the lead control of Afghan security forces. Previously, the plan had been to hand over lead control for the entire country by mid-2013. As of Friday, the plan is to meet that milestone this spring.

"Our troops will continue to fight alongside Afghans when needed, but let me say it as plainly as I can: Starting this spring, our troops will have a different mission -- training, advising, assisting Afghan forces," Obama said. "It will be a historic moment and another step toward full Afghan sovereignty, something I know that President Karzai cares deeply about, as do the Afghan people."

Obama didn't specify whether that would allow U.S. troops, 66,000 of which remain in Afghanistan, to come home any earlier or at any more rapid pace. He said those announcements would be made "in the coming months."

"What that translates into precisely in terms of how this drawdown of U.S. troops proceeds is something that isn't yet fully determined," he said.

Obama also talked vaguely about the Bilateral Security Agreement currently being negotiated between the two countries, which is meant to set the terms for a U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan beyond 2014. But he declined to say how many troops would be needed for the post-2014 missions of targeted counterterrorism strikes against al Qaeda and training Afghan security forces.

In fact, Obama didn't commit to keeping any troops in Afghanistan post-2014 at all.

"I'm still getting recommendations from the Pentagon and our commanders on the ground in terms of what that would look like. And when we have more information about that, I will be describing that to the American people," he said. "And if we have a follow-on force of any sort past 2014, it's got to be at the invitation of the Afghan government, and they have to feel comfortable with it."

In 2011, extensive negotiations with the Iraqi government regarding an extension of U.S. troops there failed largely due to the inability of the two sides to come to an agreement on the issue of immunity for U.S. troops. Obama said Friday that the immunity issue was a deal-breaker in Afghanistan as well.

"Nowhere do we have any kind of security agreement with a country without immunity for our troops. You know, that's how I, as commander in chief, can make sure that our folks are protected in carrying out very difficult missions," he said. "I think it's fair to say that from my perspective, at least, it will not be possible for us to have any kind of U.S. troop presence post-2014 without assurances that our men and women who are operating there are in some way subject to the jurisdiction of another country."

U.S. troops in places like Japan, South Korea, and Italy aren't completely immune from local prosecution. A top White House official told The Cable that every country is different and so the immunities needed to keep U.S. troops in Afghanistan might not mirror those in other places.

"Each agreement is negotiated on its own merits and reflects the circumstances and nature of the bilateral relationship and the shared interests that the presence of U.S. forces supports," NSC spokesman Tommy Vietor said. "We will negotiate to ensure that our personnel would have the authorities and protections that they need to operate in Afghanistan should the president decide so. As is true elsewhere around the world, U.S. forces in Afghanistan are at all times subject to the U.S. Uniform Code of Military Justice."

Obama did say he agreed with Karzai that the Taliban should be allowed to open up a representative office in Qatar, from which the militant group can negotiate with the Afghan government on peace and reconciliation.

Karzai, in his remarks, said that the United States had agreed to implement the return of all detention centers to Afghan government control in the very near future -- a move he suggested would give him more wiggle room to negotiate immunity for U.S. troops.

The United States has largely achieved its goals in Afghanistan, Obama said, even if the country is not yet a fully functioning democracy that is stable and secure.

"Have we achieved everything that some might have imagined us achieving in the best of scenarios? Probably not. You know, this is a human enterprise, and, you know, you fall short of the ideal," he said. "Did we achieve our central goal, and have we been able, I think, to shape a strong relationship with a responsible Afghan government that is willing to cooperate with us to make sure that it is not a launching pad for future attacks against the United States? We have achieved that goal. We are in the process of achieving that goal."

But independent analysts tend to doubt that Afghan forces are ready to step up as U.S. troops stand down.

Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies told The Cable that the transfer of responsibility that Obama and Karzai announced Friday comes well before the Afghan security forces are able to actually do the job of securing their own country.

"This transition is effectively an exercise in political symbolism," he said. "What you are doing is putting people nominally in charge regardless of whether they can operate on their own. These are ways of pushing the Afghans to do more faster, but nobody should have any confusion that the transfer of responsibility means that they are ready to do the job."

There's too much acceptance of the idea that the 352,000 Afghan security forces Obama talked about Friday are actually operational, especially considering that about half are police forces working for a dysfunctional and corrupt Afghan ministry of interior, Cordesman said. Moreover, there's no plan to support and protect the U.S. diplomats and development teams that will remain when most U.S. troops depart.

"Exactly what kind of aid capability will be left in the field? Most civilian and NGO foreign aid workers are going to have to leave," he said.

The Afghans are more dependent on U.S. money than on U.S. troops, though Karzai said last month -- and hinted again Friday -- that U.S. money is what is corrupting Afghanistan, according to Cordesman.

"The Afghan economy and the Afghan government might not hold together without very substantial amounts of economic aid," he said.