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New Joint Chiefs Chairman Has His Focus On Iraq War

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By ROBERT BURNS, The Associated Press

Published: October 1, 2007

WASHINGTON - Navy Adm. 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 U.S. attention that it may be overstretching the military and distracting the nation from other threats.

When he steps into his new office at the Pentagon today, replacing Marine Gen. Peter Pace as the senior military adviser to the president and the defense secretary, 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 a Senate confirmation hearing July 31. It weighs heavily on the minds of people in the United States; 'it weighs heavily on mine,' he said.

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 Defense Secretary Robert Gates' 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. In June, Gates announced Pace would retire rather than serve a second term as chairman - not because of his job performance but because of political heat over the war.

Adm. 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 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 critical point in the war. After building up U.S. forces in the first half of the year, despite some misgivings by the Joint Chiefs, Bush has committed to ending the increase by July.

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. If the picture is still murky in July, will Bush proceed with further troop cuts? That is the kind of decision in which Mullen's view will carry weight.

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.

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