Military chief grilled on Afghanistan

The nation's top military officer, seeking another term in the job, will face some tough questions on Afghanistan before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is preaching patience, telling the Globe recently that it will take 12 months to 18 months to turn around the mission after it received short shrift during the war in Iraq.

But patience appears to be running out in Congress and in the public as the US death toll rises eight years into the war.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Armed Services chairman Carl Levin both made highly public statements last week to express deep skepticism about an expected request to send more US troops, beyond the 21,000 that President Obama has already dispatched.

A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released this morning found public support for the war at its lowest point. In the survey, conducted Friday through Sunday, 39 percent of respondents said they favor the war and 58 percent said they oppose it.

As recently as May, a majority supported the war in the CNN poll. But July and August were each the bloodiest of the war for US forces.

UPDATE: Mullen told the committee that winning in Afghanistan "probably means more forces," though he said he does not know how many troops the top military commander in the country will seek.

"It's very clear to me that we will need more resources," to carry out the new counterinsurgency strategy, Mullen said, according to the Associated Press.