 While this was being deliberated , the troop request was leaked to the press and published in The New York Times on 10 March . The article also revealed that the request had begun a serious debate within the administration . According to it , many high @-@ level officials believed that the U.S. troop increase would be matched by the communists and would simply maintain a stalemate at a higher level of violence . It went on to state that officials were saying in private that " widespread and deep changes in attitudes , a sense that a watershed has been reached . " 
