If the Pentagon thought they'd cowed Hillary Clinton last week when Undersecretary of Defense Eric S. Edelman wrote the senator that her May request for a briefing on contingency plans in Iraq "reinforces the enemy," they just found out that they were wrong.

Last week, Clinton went over Edelman's head, writing directly to his boss, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, that Edelman "has his priorities backward." And today, along with Sens. Jim Webb, D-Va., Evan Bayh, D-Ind., and Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., Clinton requested that Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., "hold a hearing on Department of Defense contingency planning for the redeployment of United States military forces from Iraq."

The letter to Levin describes Edelman's response to Clinton's briefing request as "spurious," and states that "his assertion that necessary congressional oversight emboldens our enemies is outrageous."