The Pentagon late last night finally got around to acknowledging that one of its best known Guantanamo prisoners, Salim Hamdan, Osama bin Laden's driver, had been sent home to Yemen. This was nearly a full day after we'd posted a story on our Web site that the transfer was taking place and hours after the Washington Post had announced the same on its front page.

Reading the press release from the Defense Department is otherworldly — as have been most things involving Guantanamo, the supposed home for the worst of the worst. The headline, "Detainee Transfer Announced," is the same the Pentagon uses for every prisoner transfer, and there's no hint of Hamdan's role as the named plaintiff in the U.S. Supreme Court case that overturned the original military tribunal scheme as unconstitutional.

It also provides the boilerplate defense of the tribunal system: "Military commissions have historically been used to prosecute enemy combatants who violate the laws of war and provide a full and fair trial, while protecting classified and sensitive information and all personnel participating in the process, including the accused.

Then there's this reminder of how fair the system has been: "Since 2002, more than 520 detainees have departed Guantanamo for other countries including Albania, Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, Bahrain, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Maldives, Morocco, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Uganda, the United Kingdom, and Yemen."

No mention, of course, that only one of those 520 stood trial of any sort (plea deal sent him back to Australia before any verdict was reached) and that most were innocents who should never have been in Guantanamo in the first place.

As for Hamdan, he was so dangerous that the military jurors who convicted him in August of lending material support to a terrorist organization defied prosecutors' demand for a 30-year prison sentence and set a sentence that would get him out before the New Year. His attorney posits he'll go back to driving again, says Carol Rosenberg's story from this morning.

ANOTHER OBAMA NEWS CONFERENCE 10:45 this morning, Eastern. It is just like having two presidents. Except the other one is quieter.

UPDATE: The other one pardoned a turkey. Very amusing juxtaposition on MSNBC in the trailer listing the pair's activities for the day.

ABOUT THAT U.S.-IRAQ TROOP AGREEMENT It's going slowly in the Iraqi parliament. The thought was it would get approved fairly quickly. But at 4:30 p.m. in Baghdad, there's still been no vote — and there may not be one today. Parliament reconvenes in about an hour. U.S. officials are no doubt nervous. See today's story to understand why.

UPDATE: Parliament has put the vote off till tomorrow. Plan may be to set a national referendum for next year that would allow Iraqis to disapprove the accord then, without affecting the basic pullout date.