President Obama is in Alaska, refueling en route to Japan and meeting with troops at Elmendorf Air Force Base.

Among the news from White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs en route to Alaska:

--Obama’s likely to hold at least one more meeting on the war plans;

--He will not announce his new strategy for Afghanistan until after he returns home from the Asia trip;

--The US is talking with Afghanistan about benchmarks to measure progress once the new strategy is announced.

“Some benchmarks HAVE been discussed,” Gibbs said. “But…the president believes that we have been there for eight years. And we’re not going to be there forever. … It’s important to fully examine not just how we’re going to get folks in but how we’re going to get folks out.”

 “The embassy there is working on agreements with the Afghan government. … I think it’s sufficient to say that whether on the civilian side of our effort, whether on the military side of our effort, or the governance side of the Afghans’, the President will want – has asked for, and will want – benchmarks to evaluate our progress. That’s part of his desire to get a sense of where we are rather than committing to an open-ended conflict.”

--White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is not on the trip, presumably staying in DC to work on health care.

--First Lady Michelle Obama also is not on the week-plus trip, definitely staying in DC to work on the First Family.  “There are two calculations,” Gibbs said. “One’s Malia. And the other one is Sasha. … She has, first and foremost, that responsibility. And being away for so long, she’s taking care of that.”

Drawing near to a final decision on a new Afghanistan strategy, President Obama met with top aides for the 8th time Wednesday and stressed that if he does send more troops there as requested, the US commitment will NOT be open ended.

“The president and his team discussed the length of time that it would take to implement the options he’s been presented,” a White House spokesman said after the 2 hour, 20 minute meeting in the White House Situation Room.

“The President believes that we need to make clear to the Afghan government that our commitment is not open ended. After years of substantial investments by the American people, governance in Afghanistan must improve in a reasonable period of time to ensure a successful transition to our Afghan partner.”

The White House also pushed back against any suggestion that the president has decided on how many additional troops to send to Afghanistan. McClatchy reported Saturday that he’s leaning toward sending 34,000 more troops.

“Contrary to published reports, the President has not made a decision about the options presented,” the spokesman said.

President Obama is meeting privately this afternoon with the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the White House, his seventh meeting with advisers to consider whether to expand or scale back the mission in Afghanistan, and by how much.

It was his second meeting with the Joint Chiefs as a group, representing each branch of the military, said White House press secretary Robert Gibbs. Gibbs said Friday’s meeting was not necessarily the last the president would hold, and that there could be another next week. Still, Gibbs said of the review, “I think it's nearing its conclusion.”

The president and Joint Chiefs were to discuss Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s assessment and request for an additional 40,000 troops. “I think that force strength, the health of the force, is certainly a topic that will come up,” Gibbs said shortly before the closed-door meeting began. “Their views on the assessment will come up.”

As for how and when the president will share his conclusions with the American people, Gibbs said the White House had not yet discussed that in detail but that Obama “strongly believes that it's important for the American people and for the international community to know his reasoning behind whatever decision he makes and to clearly explain our goals and objectives in Afghanistan and in Pakistan _ and the region as a whole. So I anticipate that, whatever form it ultimately takes, the president will use the occasion to explain some of that to the American people so that they understand his decision-making and his thought process."

“We will not meet in perpetuity on this,” Gibbs said. “But the president believes that we're still assessing the information that he needs to make that final decision.”

The following officials were expected to attend, according to the White House:

Vice President Joe Biden; Secretary of Defense Robert Gates; National Security Adviser Gen. James Jones; Admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; General James E. Cartwright, USMC, Vice Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff; General George W. Casey, Chief of Staff of the Army; General James T. Conway, Commandant, U.S. Marine Corps; Admiral Gary Roughead, Chief of Naval Operations; General Norton A. Schwartz, Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force; deputy national security adviser Tom Donilon; John Brennan, assistant to the president for counterterrorism and homeland security; and Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, special assistant to the president for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

President Obama will squeeze in another closed-door Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy session this morning with top advisers. Then, he heads to Florida. He'll meet with servicemen and servicewomen in Jacksonville, and travel to Miami to raise money for Democrats.

Scheduled to attend today's Af-Pak meeting: Vice President Joe Biden (via videoconference), Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; Secretary of Defense Robert Gates; National Security Adviser Gen. James Jones; Deputy National Security Adviser Tom Donilon; John Brennan, Assistant to the President for Counterterrorism and Homeland Security; and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

The White House and former Vice President Dick Cheney are at war again – this time over the real war in Afghanistan.

The White House Thursday shot back at Cheney assertion that Obama is “dithering” while debating a quest for more troops in Afghanistan, countering that the Bush-Cheney administration sat on a similar request for 8 months without acting.

"What Vice President Cheney calls dithering, President Obama calls his solemn responsibility to the men and women in uniform and to the American public,” Gibbs said.

“I think we've all seen what happens when somebody doesn't take that responsibility seriously," he added in a veiled reference to the Bush administrations decision to go to war in Iraq on the false assumption that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

Moreover, Gibbs said, it was really Former President George W. Bush and Cheney who dithered, sitting on a request for more troops for more than 8 months without granting it.

"I think it's pretty safe to say that the vice president was for seven years not focused on Afghanistan, even more curious given the fact that an increase in troops sat on desks in this White House, including the vice president's, for more than eight months, a resource request filled by President Obama in March,” Gibbs said.

“I find it interesting that he's blaming us for something that he didn't see fit to do over, best I can tell, seven years of a war in Afghanistan," he added.

Gibbs was reacting to Cheney’s charge in a Wednesday night speech that Obama is dragging his feet in weighing a new strategy for Afghanistan.

"The White House must stop dithering while America's armed forces are in danger," Cheney said. “It's time for President Obama to do what it takes to win a war he has repeatedly and rightly called a war of necessity."

"Make no mistake. Signals of indecision out of Washington hurt our allies and embolden our adversaries," Cheney said.

The former vice president also disputed the suggestion from Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel that the new administration had to start from scratch on Afghanistan policy. Cheney said the outgoing administration briefed the Obama team during the transition.

“They asked us not to announce our findings publicly, and we agreed, giving them the benefit of our work and the benefit of the doubt," Cheney said.

Gibbs noted that it was Obama, not Bush or Cheney, who ecided to send additional troops to Afghanistan. Obama ordered 21,000 more troops in March. Obama now is weighing a request for more troops.

A new report from the American University School of Communications notes that young adults - who helped elect President Barack Obama - are expressing concerns about some of his policies.

"While young adults 18-29 years old expressed positive feelings toward the president personally and about his overall performance, the polls indicate doubts about Obama’s handling of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as split opinions about his handling of health care," the report says.

"While the sample sizes of young adults are small, the findings suggest that the President may be seeing some erosion in support from his more enthusiastic supporters."

President Obama met with Gen. Stanley McChrystal Friday in Denmark to discuss Afghanistan and Pakistan,  They met aboard Air Force One as Obama finished a visit to pitch the U.S. bid for the 2016 summer Olympics.

McChrystal, who'd beenin London for a speech, flew to Copenhagen for the 25-minute face-to-face meeting, sitting with Obama in the forward cabin of the plane for he left and Obama then took off to return home to Washington.

Obama's been under fire for speaking only occasionally with the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. The general participated via video hookup in a White House meeting Wednesday on his proposal for a new strategy in the war that also would require more U.S. troops.

"The president wanted to take the opportunity to get together with Gen. McChyrstal," said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.

President Obama and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen met earlier today at the White House. No questions, but both made statements to the press pool.

Rasmussen: "I agree with President Obama in his approach: Strategy first, then resources. The first thing is not numbers. It is to find and fine-tune the right approach to implement the strategy already laid down, and all NATO allies are right now looking at McChrystal's review.

"I'm convinced that success in Afghanistan is achievable and will be achieved. And don't make any mistake. The normal discussion on the right approach should not be misinterpreted as lack of resolve. This Alliance will stand united and we will stay in Afghanistan as long as it takes to finish our job."

Howard Kurtz reveals in the Washington Post today that the paper delayed by a day its publication of Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal's Afghanistan assessment, at Obama administration behest. But for followers of the Post's financial fortunes, what may be most interesting is what Kurtz reveals about Woodward's current relationship with the newspaper: Woodward is now a contract writer, with a monthly retainer of $100. That's right, just 2 zeros.

Congressional negotiators agreed last night not to ban the release of photos of terrorist detainees, after President Barack Obama wrote a five-paragraph letter promising to fight to prevent disclosure.

Many House Democrats wanted the right to release the photos. Senate Republicans and Democrats had voted unanimously to keep them secret.

In his letter, Obama wrote the appropriations commttee chairmen that while he opposed a legislative ban, he could “assure you that I will continue to take every legal and administrative remedy available to me to ensure the DoD (Defense Department) detainee photographs are not released.

“Should a legislative solution prove necessary,” he wrote, “I am committed to working with the Congress to enact legislation that achieves the objectives we share.”

He said, though, he would oppose a legislative ban at the moment so that the bill could move through Congress. Passage of the ban, he said, “would unnecessarily complicate the essential objective of supporting the troops and would accomplish no substantive purpose.” Read the letter.

Another controversy was also resolved with a compromise: for four months, Congress is unlikely to block Obama from ordering detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp into the United States for trial.

By then, Congress hopes Obama will come up with a plan for closing the detention facility.

The crux of the bill is $79.9 billion for the Pentagon to fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Another $10.4 billion would go to the State Department and other “international affairs and stabilization” efforts in Pakistan.

And $7.7 billion would go to helping ease the flu pandemic, while another $1 billion would be used for the “cash for clunkers” program that will allow consumers to trade in old gas guzzling vehicles for more fuel efficient ones.