The Never Produced Review

So it appears the NPR is delayed yet again.   What was previously "early March" according to Tauscher is now "late March or April" according to Laura Rozen: 

With nuclear disarmament a signature issue for Obama, the administration is hashing out the tough issues ahead of the delayed release of its Nuclear Posture Review, now expected out in late March or April.

Disarmament hands say the review draft originally headed by the Defense Department’s Brad Roberts was too status quo on the policy issues from the White House's perspective, and is being reworked at the senior inter-agency level by Principal Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Jim Miller, officials from the office of State’s Under Secretary of State for Arms Control Ellen Tauscher, and White House and OVP nonproliferation advisors before heading to the president’s desk.

“On content, the president and vice president want a more ambitious disarmament and non-proliferation agenda than many people they appointed,” Cirincione said. “And in this field, no question, the president is the transformer in chief. He is driving the agenda. It’s no secret that the president has been somewhat disappointed in the pace of change on this."

What they got in the NPR draft to date is however “very modest adjustments to the existing strategy, when they wanted fundamental change,” Cirincione said.

Two NSC Senior Directors responsible for the NPR, NSC Senior Director for Defense Barry Panel, who held the role for the Bush administration, and George Look, are career civil servants considered to have a generally more traditional approach to the issue. "If you want a transformational document, you don't ask two men who have spent a combined forty years in the burueacracy to do this job; they will provide you a status quo document," another non proliferation hand said. "The third appointee, Brad Roberts, who controlled the pen on the NPR at the Pentagon, was the author of the controversial Perry-Schlesinger report, widely dunned by progressives because it perpetuated a hawish Cold War approach on nuclear weapons policy."

Much like the ongoing START negotiations, trying to set a hard and fast deadline on when the NPR will be complete has proven to be a futile exercise.