Excerpt of a press conference on Operation Moshtarek today from Gen. McChrystal. Message: Afghans Are In The Lead, And Hamid Karzai Is Looking Out For You. The clean-shaven Afghan in the fatigues is Defense Minister Wardak. An email I got from an Afghan government spokesman tells me that Interior Minister Atmar is in this too, but the guy in the turban doesn’t look like him.

If McChrystal addressed the deadly HIMARS accident in this presser, it’s not in this excerpt. Noah Shachtman has an excellent overview of the artillery system, its use, the oversight functions around it, and its weaknesses.

HIMARS is relatively new for the Marines, who started using it in combat in 2007. Only two battalions in the Marine Corps are trained to use the system. Coordinates can be quickly punched in on a battlefield computer; unlike artillery or mortars, the system is relatively unaffected by weather, atmospheric pressure, or elevation differences. “It’s literally push-button,” the Army officer says. But a scrambled pair of numbers can mean rockets flying in the wrong direction. And lost lives.

Also, apparently Atmar said at the presser that Marja’s Taliban fighters fell back to Pakistan. Did Gen. Kayani know about that and prepare for it?