Lionel Beehner Archived 2008-02-21 at the Wayback Machine of the nonpartisan Council of Foreign Relations has called the benchmarks "vague because the metrics to measure them are imprecise."[85] The New York Times stated on May 13 that "Nobody in Washington seems to agree on what progress actually means – or how, precisely, it might be measured."[86] General David Petraeus, commander of the Multinational force in Iraq, has stated that his recommendations on troop strength are not dependent on the Iraqi government's ability to meet the benchmarks.[87]