"We have reached a turning point" following the long hunt for bin Laden, Clinton said after intensive meetings in the Pakistani capital under tight security.

"It is up to the Pakistani people to choose what kind of country they wish to live in," Clinton said, "and it is up to the leaders of Pakistan to deliver results."

Clinton and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, praised Pakistan's stand against some militants and challenged its leaders to take decisive steps to jointly take on al-Qaida. Both the senior leadership of al-Qaida and the Taliban are thought to live in Pakistan, and affiliated militants use safe havens in Pakistan to attacks U.S. forces fighting next door in Afghanistan.

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Clinton made the remarks after meeting with Pakistani leaders on a seven-hour trip aimed at repairing ties badly damaged by the May 2 U.S. raid that killed the al-Qaida chief. A brief portion of the meetings witnessed by reporters was stiff and awkward, with no smiles among the U.S. delegation, and it was unclear how much, if any, progress was made.

Although she stressed that the U.S. won't abandon an alliance it considers critical to success in the war in Afghanistan and that both countries had shared interests, Clinton also criticized Pakistanis for propagating conspiracy theories and anti-American sentiment.

Pakistani officials are angry they were not told in advance of the raid against bin Laden, who was living in an army town not far from the capital, Islamabad. Parliament has passed resolutions condemning the U.S. incursion, and the U.S. has been asked to reduce the number of military personnel it has stationed in nuclear-armed Pakistan, which has become a nexus for Islamic extremism.

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All sources spoke on condition of anonymity because the changes haven't been announced by the president.

The changes would probably take effect this summer. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has already said he will leave this year, and the White House wants to schedule Senate confirmation hearings in the coming months.

The officials say Obama is expected to also announce that Lt. Gen. John Allen would replace Petraeus as Afghanistan commander, and that diplomat Ryan Crocker will be the next U.S. ambassador in Afghanistan.

The changes are expected to be announced Thursday at the White House. A former U.S. official said all four candidates would stand together with Obama for the announcement.

Allen, now the deputy commander of U.S. Central Command in Florida, is due in Washington on Wednesday, and sources in Afghanistan said Petraeus was also headed to Washington.

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The accounts of civilian deaths among nearly 400,000 purported Iraq war logs released Friday by the WikiLeaks website include deaths unknown or unreported before now -- as many as 15,000 by the count of one independent research group.

The field reports from U.S. forces and intelligence officers also indicate U.S. forces often failed to follow up on credible evidence that Iraqi forces mistreated, tortured and killed their captives as they battled a violent insurgency.

Iraq's prime minister accused WikiLeaks of trying to sabotage his re-election hopes by highlighting years-old abuses by Iraqi security forces. A statement released Saturday by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's office said the documents show no proof of any improper treatment of detainees under al-Maliki's administration.

The war logs were made public in defiance of the Pentagon, which insisted that the release would put the lives of U.S. troops and their military partners at risk.

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U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who only last month had said it was too soon for high-level reconciliation talks, struck a different chord at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.

"Whenever opportunities arise that are worth exploring, I think we ought to take advantage of that," Gates said.

Senior U.S. officials have long said they didn't expect the Taliban to talk peace as long as the militants believed they were winning, and at least some administration officials had been cool to peace feelers put forth by President Hamid Karzai.

The new acceptance of reconciliation could be seen as an admission that the war is going badly. Or it may reflect the view of U.S. military commanders that NATO troops have damaged the insurgency following the surge of more than 30,000 U.S. forces ordered by President Barack Obama.

Some administration officials recently said stepped-up NATO operations, as well as U.S. drone attacks on militants across the border in Pakistan, have shaken the Taliban enough to coax them into negotiations.

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A day after a judge in California ordered the Pentagon to cease enforcement of its policy barring gays from openly serving in the military, Gates told reporters that the question of whether to repeal the law should be decided by Congress, and done only after the Pentagon completes its study on the issue.

"I feel strongly this is an action that needs to be taken by the Congress and that it is an action that requires careful preparation, and a lot of training," said Gates. "It has enormous consequences for our troops."

The defense secretary said that besides the changes in training, regulations will need revisions and changes may be necessary to benefits and Defense Department buildings.

The battle in the courts over gays in the military may be far from over. The Justice Department is considering whether to appeal the court ruling and its first response may well be another trip to the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips in Riverside, Calif., to seek a stay, or temporary freeze, of her ruling. If Phillips turns down the request, the Justice Department would likely turn to the federal appeals court in California.

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Before attending a Baghdad ceremony marking the formal end of the U.S. combat role in Iraq, the Pentagon chief met with troops at Camp Ramadi. Asked whether the U.S. was still at war in Iraq, Gates answered succinctly, "I would say we are not."

Fewer than 50,000 U.S. troops are still in Iraq, down from more than 165,000 at the height of the fighting. Although the remaining troops' main role is to help train Iraqi forces over the next year, they are threatened by violent foes. And several thousand U.S. special operations forces will continue to hunt al-Qaida and other terrorist fighters.

Asked whether the 7 1/2-year war was worthwhile, Gates said that will depend in part on whether Iraq emerges as a democratic anchor in the Middle East.

That judgment "really requires a historian's perspective," Gates said.

"I believe our men and women in uniform believe we have accomplished something that makes the sacrifice, the bloodshed, not to have been in vain," he said. "How it all weighs in the balance remains to be seen."

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The announcement was the first major step by Gates to find $100 billion in savings in the next five years. Gates says that money is needed elsewhere within the Defense Department to repair a force ravaged by years of war and to prepare troops for the next fight.

The plan prompted swift political pushback from lawmakers fearful that jobs would be lost in their districts.

"At the end of the day, Secretary Gates and his team will have to convince members of this committee that these efforts will not weaken our nation's defense," said Rep. Buck McKeon of California, the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee.

Sen. Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, said he could see "no rational basis" for eliminating Norfolk's Joint Forces Command, which was created in 1999 to improve the services' ability to work together and find efficiencies.

"In the business world, you sometimes have to spend money in order to save money," said Warner.

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Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell didn't say what efforts the Defense Department might be able to take to compel WikiLeaks to comply. He told a Pentagon press conference Thursday that, at this point, the Pentagon is asking WikiLeaks "to do the right thing."

"The Defense Department demands that WikiLeaks return immediately to the U.S. government all versions of documents obtained directly or indirectly from the Department of Defense databases or records," Morrell said.

WikiLeaks posted nearly 77,000 classified military and other documents, mostly raw intelligence reports from Afghanistan, on its website July 25. The website has reportedly withheld another 15,000 similar documents, and may publish them as well.

Publication of the first cache of documents has "already threatened the safety of our troops, our allies and Afghan citizens who are working with us to help bring about peace and stability in that part of the world," Morrell said.

"Public disclosure of additional Defense Department classified information can only make the damage worse," he said.

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A new study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research supports the prevailing view of counterinsurgency strategists who believe civilian casualties help Taliban recruiting drives. The study found that attacks on foreign forces increase slightly even when the insurgents are to blame for the deaths of non-combatants.

"Our results show that if counterinsurgent forces in Afghanistan wish to minimize insurgent recruitment, they must minimize harm to civilians despite the greater risk this entails," says the study, to be released Tuesday through the Washington-based New America Foundation.

The principle that protecting civilians is the key to sidelining and ultimately defeating an insurgency is the heart of the strategy outlined by Gen. David Petraeus in Iraq and adapted for Afghanistan. As applied by the former U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the strategy includes strict limits on U.S. air strikes and firepower.

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"Nobody thinks that Afghanistan is going to be a model Jeffersonian democracy," President Barack Obama said in a television interview that aired Sunday.

"What we're looking to do is difficult -- very difficult -- but it's a fairly modest goal, which is: Don't allow terrorists to operate from this region. Don't allow them to create big training camps and to plan attacks against the U.S. homeland with impunity," Obama said in an interview broadcast by CBS' "Sunday Morning."

July was the deadliest month for U.S. forces in the nearly nine-year war, with 66 troops killed. Military officials predict the toll will be even higher for several months to come, as U.S., NATO and Afghan forces intensify fighting in Taliban-controlled areas.

The troop surge Obama ordered last year was meant to make that expanded fight possible, but it also guaranteed higher combat deaths and a renewed focus on whether a war that remains a stalemate is still worth fighting.

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The report says the Army is failing its soldiers by missing signs of trouble, or by looking the other way as commanders try to keep to tight schedules required to meet deployment schedules.

The Army vice chief of staff, Gen. Peter Chiarelli, said Thursday that statistics on levels of drug and alcohol abuse, car accidents and crime suggests that soldiers are taking more risks while discipline has slipped.

The Army counted 160 suicides last year, the highest total ever. The rate was above that of the civilian population for the second year in a row.

The study counted an additional 146 deaths in 2009 that it says were due to murder, drug overdoses or other causes the Army lumps together as risky behavior.

There were also 1,713 known suicide attempts last year.

The ramped-up tempo of Army life, with faster deployments and too little time at home, underlies the problem but is not its sole cause, Chiarelli said.

Most suicides occur early in a soldier's Army career, and some come before a soldier has deployed.

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THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A source tells The Associated Press that President Barack Obama has decided to oust Afghanistan commanding Gen. Stanley McChrystal over inflammatory remarks he made about Obama and other high administration officials.

McChrystal had apologized for several disparaging remarks he made in an interview about his civilian superiors.

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Significantly, McChrystal departed the White House before Obama convened a regularly scheduled war planning meeting there. Officials had indicated earlier that McChrystal was summoned back to Washington from Afghanistan to explain at that session disparaging remarks he made about civilian leaders in an interview with Rolling Stone.

McChrystal met earlier Wednesday with Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at the Pentagon.

Obama summoned McChrystal after learning of his comments about administration officials in a magazine article. A White House rebuke of McChrystal suggested it would be hard for him to save his job.

Two military officials said McChrystal was prepared to submit his resignation. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Obama was set to make an announcement on McChrystal's future soon after their face-to-face.

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The official says the general has been given no indication that he'll be fired -- but no assurance he won't be.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions between Washington and the general's office in Kabul.

McChrystal has apologized for a Rolling Stone magazine profile this week in which aides mock other administration officials. Obama summoned the general to Washington to explain the remarks.

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Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who publicly apologized Tuesday for using "poor judgment" in an interview in Rolling Stone magazine, has been ordered to attend the monthly White House meeting on Afghanistan and Pakistan in person Wednesday rather than over a secure video teleconference, according to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. He'll be expected to explain his comments to Obama and top Pentagon officials, these officials said.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen has told McChrystal of his "deep disappointment" over the article, a spokesman said.

The article in this week's Rolling Stone depicts McChrystal as a lone wolf on the outs with many important figures in the Obama administration and unable to persuade even some of his own soldiers that his strategy can win the war.

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Haig's long and decorated military career launched the Washington career for which he is better known, including top posts in the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations. He never lived down his televised response to the 1981 assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan.

Hours after the shooting, then Secretary of State Haig went before the cameras intending, he said later, to reassure Americans that the White House was functioning.

"As of now, I am in control here in the White House, pending the return of the vice president," Haig said.

Some saw the comment as an inappropriate power grab in the absence of Vice President Bush, who was flying back to Washington from Texas.

Haig died at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, where he was surrounded by his family, according to two of his children, Alexander and Barbara. A hospital spokesman, Gary Stephenson, said Haig died at about 1:30 a.m.

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An announcement of the study, expected Tuesday before the Senate Armed Services Committee, marks a measured step toward President Barack Obama's goal of eliminating the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, which is based on a 1993 law.

Obama has called on Congress to repeal the law, but Democrats say they want more guidance on how to allow openly gay service members to serve without causing a major upheaval.

The yearlong study could pave the way for the biggest social change to the military since the 1948 executive order for the racial integration of units.

While his promise is being hailed as a good start by gay rights' activists, Obama is finding resistance in several corners. Some high-ranking military officers are reluctant to embrace the change while troops are stretched thin at a time of two wars.

For their part, Democrats in Congress are unlikely to press the divisive issue until after this fall's midterm elections.

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Gates told Obama in December that he would stay on at least through the end of 2010, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said Thursday. The White House had no immediate comment.

Gates held the top defense job for two years under President George W. Bush. Obama had asked Gates to stay on shortly after Obama won the 2008 presidential election. The move was meant to maintain stability in a time of two wars and made good on an Obama promise to include Republicans among his close advisers.

Gates' tenure in the Obama administration was never spelled out but was assumed to be for at least one year. Nearly a year into the Obama administration, Gates appears to be a key adviser and has showed no sign that he intended to be a short-timer.

"They agreed to revisit this issue again later this year," but the commitment is open-ended, Morrell said.

Gates, 66, "certainly looks forward to one day retiring to his family home in the Pacific Northwest," Morrell added.

Several names had been mentioned as potential successors to Gates, including Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

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The probe is still in the planning stages, but would be a broad examination beyond the particulars of Army psychiatrist Nidal Malik Hasan, officials said. Defense Secretary Robert Gates wants a unified probe that hits all corners of the Pentagon, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said.

"This is shaping up to be a DoD effort," Morrell said, using shorthand for the Department of Defense.

"This is larger than the Army. There are issues that need to be looked at department-wide, and the focus at this point is trying to figure out some of those questions," he added.

The investigation would consider some questions Morrell described as immediate, although he would not be specific, and some he said will take longer to frame and sort through.

Another official said there will be a fast look at whether the military has missed red flags that might signal there are other potentially dangerous service members out there. That official spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is still being organized.

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