Incoming chairman of the joint chiefs to put focus on Iraq
WASHINGTON - Navy Admiral Mike Mullen, the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is troubled by the Iraq war. He thinks it has become such a consuming focus of US attention that it may be overstretching the military and distracting the nation from other threats.
When he steps into his new office in Room 2E676 at the Pentagon today, replacing Marine General Peter Pace as the senior military adviser to the president and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Mullen already will be on record expressing his war worries with an unusual degree of candor.
"I understand the frustration over the war. I share it," he told his Senate confirmation hearing July 31. It weighs heavily on the minds of people in the United States, he said, and "it weighs heavily on mine."
As evidence of his focus on Iraq, Mullen has told Congress he intends to travel to Baghdad immediately after he takes over so he can see firsthand how the war effort is going.
Mullen, 60, was Gates's choice to replace Pace, who had been vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs when the Iraq invasion was launched in 2003.
Pace has been criticized by some for not speaking up more forcefully on the conduct of the war after he became chairman in October 2005.
Admiral Gregory G. Johnson, who retired from the Navy in December 2004 and has known Mullen for 20 years, said he believes Mullen will find ways to ensure that his views on the war are heard clearly.
"He is a sophisticated Washington player," Johnson said. "He knows how to operate in that environment, so I think he will be greatly advantaged" in the war councils.
Mullen arrives at a crucial point in the war. After building up US forces in the first half of this year, despite some misgivings by the Joint Chiefs, Bush now has committed to ending the increase by July.
Yet it is unclear whether Bush is any closer to the buildup's ultimate goal of getting the Iraqi government to move toward a peaceful reconciliation.
Mullen was the chief of naval operations for the past two years. In that post, he had a lesser role in the conduct of the war, given that most of the fighting is done by soldiers and Marines. Even so, he has let it be known that he is troubled by the broader effects of an escalating military commitment in Iraq.
"I worry about the toll this pace of operations is taking on [the troops], our equipment and on our ability to respond to other crises and contingencies," Mullen told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Mullen has made it clear that he agrees with a central tenet of the current US strategy in Iraq - that establishing security is critical to giving the Iraqi government the "breathing space" it needs to find a power-sharing formula. But he also sees limits to how long the military can wait.
Political reconciliation and economic growth are equally important to stabilizing Iraq, he said.
Mullen also has emphasized his concern that strains from the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may detract from the country's ability to handle threats elsewhere.
A native of Los Angeles, Mullen was educated at the US Naval Academy, Naval Postgraduate School, and the Harvard Business School's Advanced Management Program. 