Remarks by Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs

Remarks by Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs

The Heritage Foundation
April 17, 2008

Well, good afternoon. It is a real delight to be here. I will try to just cover a few points, and then open it up to questions. I find I get a great deal more out of that and get focused clearly to what might be on your mind as well. So I will try to keep my remarks short.

We are living in – and I don’t have to tell you this – we are living in an extremely challenging time. I was standing not too long ago outside the Pentagon with Secretary Gates, and I asked him, if in his some 40 years of service, most of which has been here, if he had ever seen so much going on. And his comment was that he hadn’t seen anything close, not as busy, not as intense, not as many issues, not as varied. And certainly in my almost four decades of service, that is the case. I would like to focus on those challenges this afternoon and in particular, focus on the risks that I think we are incurring from a military standpoint and also talk a little bit about mitigating those risks given that these challenges are out there. And these challenges are actually highlighted by incredible uncertainty about the future and an incredibly dangerous time that I think we are living in, and also underscored by the fact that we are not very good. Historically we haven’t been very good about predicting the future. And you can go back to many of the conflicts that we have been in, and there weren’t many people who had predicted we would be in whatever that conflict was.

So in all that we do and how I approach this job, I really try to keep my focus on balance given that uncertainty and that unpredictability. And it is in that balance, whether it is the resources against our mission, whether it is our training requirements for full-spectrum versus what we are doing right now and execution in terms of counterinsurgency, how we train with the capabilities we have, and how we look to future training and those capabilities. The amount of time we are deployed balanced with the amount of time that we are home. And then how much focus we put on the current fight we are in, and how much focus we need to put on the future. And being someone that is at headquarters here in Washington, one of my principal responsibilities is to make sure I can keep my head up above Iraq, above Afghanistan, in fact above the Middle East, and look long-term to make sure that we are taking into consideration what is out there and how we develop the military, how we recruit and retain our people, not just for the current fight, but for the challenges that will certainly come our way in the future.

So how do you balance all that? And that is really probably, pretty close to my full-time job as chairman. So I will talk a little bit about sort of a day in the life of a chairman. And I am concerned that we are not as balanced as we used to be, nor are we as balanced as we should be. Clearly right now the focus is on Iraq, and that is the right place to focus. Everybody wants to succeed in Iraq and certainly give General Petraeus and his commanders all the possible support he needs to do that. He was here last week. That is not news to any of you, I know. And in his both testimony, the questions that he got, and the subsequent stories about that – and in fact, in testimony that I and Secretary Gates had the day after General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker left, we are asked about what our recommendations were. And we both testified that our recommendations were very consistent with what General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker had brought forward. From the military standpoint, certainly I was very comfortable with his assessment and spent a fair amount of time reviewing that with the Joint Chiefs. Admiral Fallon, the commander at CENTCOM, did the same thing, and by and large, we arrived at the same conclusions. And we are very supportive of those recommendations. And it is back to what I said, all of us want to succeed in Iraq and that we fully support his recommendations up to this point.

But each of us has a different perspective, and I think sometimes that gets lost. Dave Petraeus is the tactical commander on the ground. CENTCOM commander has a responsibility for the entire region and must take into consideration not just what is going on in Iraq, but what is going on in Afghanistan and actually not even just that. That region is a region of tremendous instability. The area of focus moves from Lebanon all the way to Tehran and into South Central Asia in Afghanistan and Pakistan. And it is a huge theater with an awful lot of challenges just in that theater alone.

And then for myself and my fellow Joint Chiefs, we really have the responsibility to not just understand what is going on in Iraq and understand what is going on in the region, but it is a global responsibility. And then how do you balance our capabilities, where you put them, what do we predict about what is going to happen in various parts of the world, what are we ready to handle, and what are we concerned about in terms of readiness to handle not just where we are focused now and fighting, but should something else happen. So all of us have different responsibilities and focus in that regard. And that is what we took into consideration, as well as the recommendations that General Petraeus brought forward. And it would be, I think, both irresponsible and imprudent not to keep that global focus, which is one of the things I try to do.

I think the risks of not succeeding in Iraq right now would be exceptionally high. I get asked this question frequently. I worry about a withdrawal from Iraq, which at any time before Iraq is able to provide for its people, have an economy that is working, and have a security environment that is going to be acceptable. It doesn’t have to be the perfect solution. And clearly the kind of future that is involved there is going to be heavily dependent on the politics in Iraq and the reconciliation that has started to move down the road, but still has an awful long way to go. I focus in that regard – when I talk about succeeding there, I’m principally from the military standpoint. I don’t think we can afford to have an Iraq, which is a failed state in that part of the world. And that is directly tied to the interests in the Middle East and quite frankly, directly tied to our national interests in that regard.

And I will just use an example of the kind of uncertainty that I talked about before, and it is what happened in Basra just a couple weeks ago. And if you spend time, and I have, with General Petraeus and others I’m talking about, you look at what he has been doing literally since December. There was, and I’m sure there will continue to be a discussion about the 45 days and what does that really mean. I mean, we have started moving troops out of Iraq last December. We moved the second brigade out – I’m sorry, the third brigade out of the surge brigade at the end of March. So commanders on the ground have been continuously assessing and adjusting their battlefield geometry since as late as last year. And it is that continuous assessment, quite frankly, which has been ongoing and will continue to be ongoing the entire time that we have troops in Iraq. And General Petraeus and others are doing that constantly. I think there is great wisdom in once we come down to 15 brigades, to taking those 45 days as a time of consolidation and evaluation and making an assessment, and then moving forward with the way ahead to include certainly the possibility that we would continue to draw down troops if security conditions allow that. And if they don’t, obviously we would have to make other adjustments.

And things that will drive that, I will just briefly use the example of Basra a couple weeks ago. That was a spike in violence that we hadn’t anticipated, that we needed to – obviously when we talk about the future there, and we expect Iraq to be a dangerous place for a significant period of time. Violence is going to occur. It really gets to at what level is it acceptable? When do the Iraqi security forces have the capability and capacity to take care of its own security? And while that effort has been criticized from a tactical standpoint, I think it is very important – and there were some shortfalls in that, and I think we all recognize that. I think it is also very important to understand that a year or two ago, there is not much of a chance that the Iraqi security forces could have moved a division that quickly to move to a place of contact. So there has been progress. We have worked hard on that. The Iraqis have worked hard on that. And I think that will continue, but it is going to take some time.

Another, I think, really important part about Basra was obviously the Iranian influence, and it really highlighted the Iranian influence in ways that some of us had not seen before as directly has occurred in that part of Iraq. And it was a kind of – it certainly got an awful lot of people’s attention. And it was across the board. I mean, we have talked for a significant period of time about continuing to train Iraqis in Iran to come and fight us, and in fact, kill our soldiers, American and coalition soldiers in Iraq. We have talked about the technology that Iran has shipped into Iraq. We have talked about certainly the flow across the border there.

And yet in the end, I think an awful lot of what was there and became very evident was the politics of Iran, the politics of Sadr, the politics of the leaders in that part of Iraq. And clearly the lead that the prime minister took, that Maliki took, to address not only the challenges that he stepped forward, which dealt with the violence and dealt with the thugs and the criminals, but also the political requirements that that country has to figure out over time. And Basra – and in that obviously we had some – violence broke out. And I think we need to have – it would be unreasonable not to have some expectations that there are going to be episodes like that. And yet at the same time as we move forward, it is this continuous assessment of where we are that will, I think, drive future decisions about what our next moves might be strategically, operationally, and tactically to include how many troops, of what kind, and where they will be.

I want to talk a little bit about the impact of focusing on Iraq. And I think we need to be very clear about acknowledging that focus and acknowledging what we can do, what we have done, and also what we haven’t been able to do. And it is clearly having an effect on our ability to do other things. And the one that is very obvious to me is the link to Afghanistan. President Bush in Bucharest last week – I think it was last week or the week before last – announced that the United States would commit to additional troops in Afghanistan sometime in 2009. The availability of those troops is going to be directly tied to the resources – I’m sorry – to the available troops – I’m sorry – the troops that are in Iraq.

And so until we come down in numbers of brigades in Iraq, the brigade size requirements that exist for Afghanistan just aren’t going to be met. And that link is very, very directly. And so it is a resource issue, it is a requirements issue. And I have talked about for a long time Afghanistan being an economy of force campaign, one that does not have enough resources to really go to where you would like to go from the standpoint of certainly the combat standpoint. And we are also – actually our biggest shortfall there right now is in training resources. The center of gravity in Afghanistan is to train the Afghan army and the Afghan police. And we need about a brigade-size effort to train the Afghans. And if I had another brigade, my next brigade would go there. And then after that, I would source the combat requirements. And particularly right now we are focused on the south.

I think in ’07, because we have 3500 Marines who have recently deployed there in the south, from a fighting standpoint, we are in pretty good shape. And they are going to do not just the fighting because there is about a battalion – one of the two battalions is going to be involved in combat. But the other battalion – back to the number one priority we have right now – will be involved in training. But the Marines are only going to be there for seven months, and they are coming out at the end of the year. Those requirements still exist, and we would be looking to backfill them. And again, it is tied to available forces, which are right now from a rotational standpoint – they are tied up in Iraq.

I don’t like to even bring up Afghanistan without talking about Pakistan because I think they are linked. And I think we need to make sure our strategy includes not just Afghanistan, but also Pakistan. We have a heavy focus on the FATA, and I think that is right. Clearly if I were going to pick a place where the next attack is going to come from, that is where al Qaeda is, that is where al Qaeda leadership is, and we are going to have to figure out a way to resolve that challenge. At the same time, you have a brand-new government, who actually has been a good ally of ours on the war on terror. They are just getting their feet on the ground, and we have to be mindful that this is a new government working hard to figure out the direction they want to go. And I have been there a couple times. They recognize they have got an extremist problem. I think somebody mentioned to me the other day that they have had upwards of 250 of their citizens killed by suicide bombers in January and February alone. They really do recognize they have got that problem.

And I believe we have to have a comprehensive strategy that includes Afghanistan and Pakistan. And while it includes focus on that border, and that is really part of it, and there are huge challenges in that and underpinned by the tribes who have lived there for a long time. And having a thorough understanding of what that means should be also included in our approach to how we engage Pakistan as it moves out under this new leadership. And engaging that leadership is going to be important, and engaging Pakistan across the board, not just on the border is also, I think, very critical. And we are focused now on helping them from the military perspective to help train their trainers. And it is really no more than that, nor do I expect it will be any more than that, so that the Pakistani army can shift from a conventional focus to a counterinsurgency focus. And it is going to take them some time to do that. It did for us, it clearly will for them. And in my engagement with their leadership, they understand that, but I think we have to be patient enough to recognize it is going to take some time.

I also – and this is back to the balance issue – things that we can’t do right now, and I mentioned it briefly before. The full-spectrum aspect of what we are doing. I was actually taken aback a little bit by General Petraeus who talked about the combined arms aspect of some of the battles that they have been in Iraq. When I say taken aback, I mean, he specifically focused on that. But it is that broad – but it has not been extensive, nor have we trained for it in any of our forces for a long time. And Jim Conway in the Marine Corps specifically talks about Marines captains who have been in the Marine Corps four, five, or six years that have never seen a ship. That is not what the United States Marine Corps is, and that is not where Jim Conway or I believe the Marine Corps needs to be in the future. They have done spectacular work in the fight that we are in. They will continue to do that. But we need to be mindful that that 911 force for America is a vital force for us for the future. And so that full-spectrum aspect of how they do business in the future is something that we can’t do right now and that we need to move forward with based on what we have learned and also trying to keep in balance all the capabilities that we need as a military.

And the same is true for the Army. And while we have modularized on – one of the unstated, I think, significant unstated changes has been that the Army has modularized itself so quickly. And the coin of the realm is a brigade. And everything is centered on that, and that we have done that in a time of war. And at the same time, we are not doing much combined arms training with the Army at all. How do I deal with artillery? How do I deal with air defense? How do I deal with both air control, close air support, although certainly some of that, and in some cases, a lot of that, particularly the close air support, is going on. But the point is that we are trading that off right now. And I believe that that has got to be something that we make sure we get right for the future, as we get to a point where we can start to build dwell time back here for our forces.

And then the other thing that is out of balance right now is really the rotation. The president announced last week that we are going to reduce the 15-month deployments to 12 months. And I think that is a very important step. We have got to get to a point where we start to build dwell time. I travel an awful lot, meet with an awful lot of troops. I travel with my spouse. She meets with an awful lot of spouses, both particularly in the Marine Corps and in the Army. And the families right now are very, very brittle. We talked about the security in Iraq being fragile and tenuous. And for our families, the families are very, very brittle. Multiple deployments, an awful lot of stress tied to that, and there is a tension there as well because I can tell you the members and principally the ground forces, but not exclusively. And I would not want to understate what both the Air Force and the Navy have done to provide forces on the ground in CENTCOM to assist in critical ways all our ground forces. But our ground forces have borne the brunt of all this and that pressure is there. And we have got to move ahead to a point where we can get them back twice as long as they have been deployed.

Some of you in this room probably remember one-year deployments. I do as well. One year was a long time. Fifteen months, obviously, I have felt for some time is too long. And there is a balance there because in the kind of war-fighting that we are in, the kind of counterinsurgency operations that we are in, being there for a time makes a difference. It takes time to establish relationships. It takes time to learn to understand the people. And the people of these countries are the center of gravity for success in the long-run. So I think moving to 12 months is key. That will take off some of the pressure, and that starts the 1st of August later this year. Any unit deploying, any active duty Army unit deploying after the 1st of August will only go for 12 months. And then we need to start building dwell and get individuals back for two years for each year they are deployed. That is really key as well. And I think it will be a while before we clearly get beyond that.

So the health of the force is another part of the balancing act to make sure we keep that in balance, and it is a very, very delicate balance right now between the requirements in Iraq, the requirements in Afghanistan, the health of the force, and also global requirements. As I talked about an economy of force campaign in Afghanistan, in many ways we are doing the same kind of thing around the world, that we are globally employed from an economy of force standpoint because we have so many of our forces tied up in CENTCOM. That doesn’t mean we don’t have some additional capabilities because we do in the Navy, we do in the Air Force. We have got small units that we have got deployed in places like Central and South America or out in the Pacific or in Africa. And today, in fact, one of our Navy ships is in the Gulf of Guinea on the West Coast of Africa in an engagement type of activity, which is also very important. But clearly the focus of our resources, and rightfully so right now, is heavily in the Central Command AOR.

Actually back to just what Fort McHenry is doing – and I just left a hearing I was very encouraged by that Secretary Gates, Secretary Rice, and myself testified in front of the House Armed Services Committee speaking to building partnership capacity, and doing it together and doing it across our government, not to be the responsibility for one of our government agencies. But the message that really is in that hearing is that we have got to, I think, integrate more wholly across our government, and all of that is directly tied to the world that we are living in. And our government, I think, needs to – the structures that we have, the mechanisms that we have, needs to be adjusted significantly for the world that we are living in the 21st century.

And then one last comment – I talk about balance. It is this balance between what we are doing today and what we are doing tomorrow. And again, one of my principal responsibilities is to build the military for the future in a very uncertain time, very dangerous time, and very unpredictable time. And I think that takes balance as well. It takes all the services. It takes conventional capabilities, it takes counterinsurgency capabilities. It takes an ability to fight irregular warfare, which is what we are doing right now. It also takes capacity to engage early in what we call in phase zero operations in places like Africa, in places like South America, in places like the Pacific, in places like the Indian Ocean to establish relationships, to establish partners, to do that globally, to be preventative in nature, so that conflicts don’t break out in the future. And so having the right balance for investment now and investment in the future is very important.

And I have talked about having at least 4 percent of our GDP go for defense. For me, it is less the exact number than it is a marker to say, we need to have – I believe in our country – a national debate about how much we want to spend on our security in these very dangerous times. The highest level, I believe, that we get the military that the American people want, and they, the American people, vote in those people who go to Congress, come to Washington, make decisions. And out of that process is generated the military that we need, not just now, but in the future. And that we need to – we are clear – and there are huge challenges out there, and I understand that, not just the economic challenges that we are in right now; there are other bow waves of great entitlements, which are headed our way in the next 10, 20, 30 years that we as a country are going to have to come to deal with, not unlike security in Iraq or security in Afghanistan or security in other parts of the world.

I believe we have to have a military and a national security apparatus, which provides for the kind of deterrent and preventative capability that will allow our country to thrive. And we are linked throughout the world more now than we ever have been, and that to do that, it must be resourced not just in dollars, but with the right kind of capabilities. And those dollars have to go to the right places to build not just the equipment, the airplanes, the ships, the tanks, the weapons, but also make sure – and I think the center of gravity in our future is our people. We need to make sure we attract and retain the best people we can in our country to serve in our military, to make a difference, to answer that noble calling, to ensure that our security – and the security quite frankly globally is such that parents all over the world can raise their children to a higher standard of living and a better life. And with that –

(Applause.)

Thank you. I will be glad to take some questions.

Q: Frank Fletcher, STS Group. Sir, given the vast array of foreign intelligence threats diligently working to diminish U.S. advantages and capabilities militarily, a more coordinated, if not unified counterintelligence effort at DOD seems to make sense. If the counterintelligence field activity is dismantled, what do you envision replacing it? What kind of counterintelligence does DOD need given the challenges that are faced?

ADM. MULLEN: Are you telling me the counterintelligence is – (Laughter)

Q: I read it in the Washington Post.

ADM. MULLEN: Let me – I mean, there has been obviously a sea change tied to intelligence here. Actually there have been several in the last decades, but clearly in the last six or seven years, with the stand-up of the DNI and the focus that we have. And I believe we’re going through a big change on how intelligence is going to be both garnered and countered in the future. And some of – and so I don’t see exactly the right answer out there.

That said, both in the intelligence that I need and the counterintelligence, while there may be a view that an outfit or a capability that you just described is going to go away, that the requirement to counter our enemies in this regard is not going to go away. And I have heard nothing in many discussions. I’ve heard nothing in many discussions about the fact that that’s going to happen.

What is interesting for me in intelligence right now is, just like information, there is a tremendous amount of intelligence. There is a tremendous amount of information that comes in, in the intelligence world. And where I need help is an almost – I use the term actionable intelligence. I need knowledge, not just more information. And you know, I need to know what is really true there, or as true as we can understand it. And anything that brings that, the helps bring that in the information age that we have right now, is vital. But I don’t see the requirement for countering those who would try to penetrate us going away. Yes, sir.

Q: (Inaudible) – Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, and a retired Navy officer. Admiral, you mentioned your global focus. Looking at China if you will, you mentioned the global maritime partnership to the Chinese. Some people complain that congressionally imposed constraints make that difficult. I wonder about other forms of engagement, for example, humanitarian assistance operations or something, that are specifically permitted by the national defense authorization Bill of 2000.

ADM. MULLEN: With China specifically?

Q: Yes, sir.

ADM. MULLEN: Yeah, I am a big believer in the military-to-military engagement. Actually, and Admiral Keating was just recently there; I visited China last August. In that engagement – and this was before I took this job, but it was in my hat as the head of our Navy – and I had also hosted my counterpart from the Chinese navy several months before that here. And I was actually encouraged by the engagement opportunity he presented. And I recognized that there are huge challenges for both countries in this regard. But I think the military-to-military piece of this will continue to be very important.

And when I visited, there were certain things that I asked about. Could we exercise with you? Can we do the kinds of – take some small steps initially between our navies that often times set the stage for other engagement activities, because of who navies, what they are in terms of its not a lot of footprint; it’s well understood about how to go to sea together. There are ways to do that to engage there that I think offer a lot of potential down the road.

I was encouraged by that. I think we need to stay engaged. We’ve certainly had some challenges with them subsequent to that in terms of the Kitty Hawk visit to Hong Kong, the minesweepers that were not refueled, which is pretty fundamental support no matter who you are in the world. But subsequent to that, we’ve actually had ship visits to Hong Kong. And so, I think this is all part of the engagement plan. And at the same time – or the engagement strategy – I was encouraged the other day that the hotline got established between Secretary Gates and his counterpart in China. And yet, there are certainly many questions that we have about how transparent the Chinese are. And in many ways, they aren’t.

They’re a growing nation. They have some huge challenges. They’ve got tremendous internal challenges as well as external challenges. So I think it’s important to stay engaged with them and not be naïve about where they’re going in terms of their investment because they’re investing a lot of money in technology, a lot of money in high-end military capability. They’ve got resource requirements that are going to be very demanding on them as their economy continues to go.

So again, from a military standpoint – and I wouldn’t say just exclusively because it hasn’t just been military-to-military – we need to continue to stay with them. A peaceful, rising, China in the long run, I think, can be very positive for the world. To the contrary, if that doesn’t happen, it could be very dangerous.

MR. : This will be the last question.

Q: Thank you, sir. I’m a Gulf War veteran.

ADM. MULLEN: I heard a gasp over here. (Laughter.) I don’t know if I want that question. (Laughter.)

Q: Yes, sir. I’m an Iraq War veteran. And I’m concerned about the concept or the drift towards repositioning or balancing of forces, because I had seen that in Iraq with the surge right now, our casualties are down 20 percent. It is saving American lives. I understand the political expediency is very difficult to correlate with that. But the surge is working. We now have the Iraqi government putting $9 billion into the Iraq military, which wasn’t happening just a year ago.

And my concern is – I’d also served before this war in different capacities in the Middle East doing missions in the Gaza Strip and Ramallah, and I had studied the terrorist threat. I don’t believe Pakistan and Afghanistan is where we can win this war. It’s a Pashtun threat there, but the Pashtuns are not going out in international jihad. Our problem is with the Arabs, the Wahhabists, the Salafis. And if we focus inordinately in the future on putting forces into Afghanistan and Pakistan, I’m sure we will lose the long-term war we’re facing. It’s Iraq where we win this. And I’m concerned about that drift, sir.

ADM. MULLEN: Certainly I appreciate both your question and concern. The surge has worked. Security is better. Our casualties are down. Our injuries are down, as are they down for the Iraqi people, the Iraqi security forces as well. And certainly, from my perspective, this isn’t about political expediency at all. It is about what I said in my responsibility, which is this overall balance piece. And as I also said, it is very important for us to succeed in Iraq.

That said, there is only so – I mean, security can only buy you so much. That government needs to continue to politically reconcile. And there’s a certain patience I think we need to both have with that and also not have with that. There is a certain amount of time that is associated with that. And I don’t have an exact time, but we need to be mindful of that. And back to my view is – different from you – is that the Pakistan/Afghanistan border, one is – the border is where they’re plotting against us right now to generate another, a similar kind of attack against our country. And that’s al Qaeda and that’s where their headquarters is. So that is a problem.

Secondly, in the case of Pakistan, that’s 165 million Muslims with whom we, I think, need to be not just concerned but in terms of establishing a relationship – but there are possibilities there that with a positive long-term relationship, as that country continues to grow – and it just had a good set of elections, which I am very encouraged about; as I said, a new government – that there is a significant and critical focus that is required there. And that does not mean that my long-term is also not focused on this long war because I think we’re going to be at this for a significant period of time. And I need the force to handle that now. And I need the force to handle it in the future.

MR: Thank you very much.

ADM. MULLEN: We’ll see it if it works.

(Laughter.)

MR. : Okay, well, here it is. What I come away with here is perhaps you greatest concern is the lack of funding, but even more so lack of troops. That balancing act is based on the fact that we don’t have enough troops. We’ve known that for quite a while. It just seems to continue to multiply the concern. My worry is that if we do not prevail in these critical areas or if we even lose due to the fact that we didn’t have enough forces in the area, history will look very, very badly on us. How do we explain that? It seems inexcusable to me. There is a leadership lacking, and I don’t know whether it’s across the board or what. But I hear it all the time. I’m hearing it from you. It makes it an even more important item in my mind. How do we explain this?

ADM. MULLEN: I think that we didn’t have enough troops there is obvious, tied just to the success of the surge. And at the same time, we are growing the forces about as fast as we can grow them right now in terms of the Army and the Marine Corps. And that growth is occurring in ’08, principally ’09, ’10, and ’11. So we’re not going to increase our capacity in the Marine Corps and the Army significantly for another couple of years. Out of which, certainly, you generate more combat capability to be able to create not just security there but also provide capability elsewhere and build in some relief for this force, which has been pressed exceptionally hard in its six-plus years of war.

And again, for me, it is this balance. And it’s a very delicate balance against all those requirements. And I certainly understand, again, what the priority is. It’s Iraq right now. It’s making sure that we continue to provide the security so that that government and country can get on its feet there. And that’s also going to take some time. We have to have some patience with that. There’s been progress, but there still needs to be a lot more. And in the end, I think that probably the key to that, in addition to the economy and the security is going to be the political reconciliation. And I’ll just use Basra very specifically as an example because it was a form of that kind of reconciliation that essentially reduced that violence back down to where it is right now.

Q: Thank you, sir. Harvey Feldman here with Heritage; I’m a retired ambassador. Sir, as you look out globally beyond Iraq and Afghanistan, over the next three to five years, what do you see as the principal challenges we’re likely to face?

ADM. MULLEN: I am principally focused on the Middle East beyond Iraq and Afghanistan. I worry a great deal about Iran, because Iran is a destabilizer. It’s led by a hegemonic regime. It’s well resourced. And it resources not just the challenges in Iraq; it’s actually starting to reach into Afghanistan, into the Taliban. It supports Hezbollah and Hamas. And it is at the heart of a great deal of discontent and disruption and instability in that part of the world. So I have expectations that Iran will remain front and center certainly for at least the next three to five years.

Now, I’m not arguing that that’s where the next conflict occurs. And I am one who has also said that we need to keep all options on the table with respect to Iran. And I would hope that in the future, we could figure out a way to dialogue with them to figure out if there’s a way ahead. And I just don’t know. We’ve done that in the past with our enemies. And I would hope that we would be able to do that as well. But certainly, I wouldn’t – based on 30-plus years of that regime, I wouldn’t hang my hat on that either. So that is a big piece.

In another part of the world, clearly the Western Pacific, and the evolution really of continued balance in that part. We’ve got great friends out there. They’re really concerned about where China is going as well. And as I said earlier, I think it’s very important that we stay engaged there. We’ve got a huge United States footprint there. Stay engaged. We’ve got great friends. And certainly, that part of the world, economically as well as security-wise, is also going to be one of great focus.

But I wouldn’t just – it’s back to what I said earlier. Predicting, we haven’t been very good at that. So those are concerns; and if I guess there, it’s probably come from somewhere else. Actually right next to you, I pointed too broadly on that last one.

Q: Afternoon, I’m Randy Unger. I support the assistant secretary of Defense for homeland defense. As the global war on terrorism and homeland defense, homeland security have evolved over the last six or seven years since 9/11, it’s been interesting to hear more and more about security as an all-government challenge requiring all-government solutions. And within the Pentagon, we’re hearing more and more about all-government con plans and other plans.

Thinking very broadly from a high policy viewpoint, could you anticipate that your successor in 2028 and the Defense Department in 2028 might be more constrained than it is today in how we do things?

ADM. MULLEN: I’m not sure I’d use the word constrained. I would hope that we would be side by side with every agency in our government in a much more integrated, collaborative, open, transparent, agile, flexible way than we are right now. I mean, I think that’s where we’re headed. That’s what I say. Actually, I’ve seen that inside the building from just the perspective of a joint staff working with OSD and the history there has not always been one of great joy between the two groups.

I’ve seen that across the department – sorry from DOD to State and the engagement. And quite frankly, not unlike any other organization – when the leaders get along, it’s amazing how the rest of the organizations start to get along and to work together. And that’s what’s going on right now. And I’d use the testimony that – testament to that is just the hearing I spent three hours at this morning over at the House Armed Services Committee. I would see more and more of that across the fullness of government to include certainly the Homeland Security secretary and others.

One of the things I’ve been struck by in the time I’ve had the job as chairman is the integral part, the very important part that almost every agency plays – maybe not in every issue and every part of the world but significant issues and important places in the world. And it’s very important to have them at the table. So I’d be less concerned about constraints than I am that when it comes to what I should be doing that integrated group essentially gives me the lead and is supportive. And I would do the same to them.

Okay, one more question. Yes, sir. Oh, I guess I can take a couple more.

Q: You’re here in the bowels of one of the most outspoken critics of the Law of the Sea Convention. Heritage website claims, for example, that the ratification of this treaty will undermine our military and intelligence operations. Can you take this opportunity to comment on the nature and quality of this criticism and the importance of ratification of this treaty?

ADM. MULLEN: I think it’s very important that we ratify this treaty. I’m in the military. And I don’t subscribe to those views. And in fact, I think that ratification of this treaty offers an opportunity to participate. And part of this for me is the world that we’re living in now versus the world when that treaty came online initially back in the early ‘80s, I think – and there were some challenges with that. And those have been repaired or those have been changed, not the least of which was the issue tied, I think, to mineral rights.

And I am someone that grew up around the world and engaging. And I’m very sensitive, quite frankly, to the sea aspect of this and the constraints that that treaty – or I’m sorry – that certain countries could have on the freedom of being able to navigate around the world in a world that’s getting smaller, not physically but certainly from the global perspective. So I think those rights that are tied to what’s on that treaty is very important, not just now but in the future. We are one of the very future outliers in terms of ratification of that treaty. And my view is, I think it’s more important to be at the table than to be outside, trying to make you case out there. And it’s an important one to us in the military.

Q: Thank you. Ron Talarino American – (inaudible) – Capital. In your remarks, you commented on the police force. I was curious as to whether you had some specific thoughts as to engaging the police, developing it more. This is on the international police forces, because it would seem that they are the first responders would be of, A, critically important from a cultural perspective, and then, B, I think just from a policy perspective as well.

ADM. MULLEN: I think they are certainly on an equal if not more important to develop in a country like Iraq and Afghanistan than the military. And it turns out, developing police; training police isn’t a real strength of the United States, and certainly not of the United States military. Like many things that have come our way, we’ve learned it and we’ve gotten pretty good at it in certain areas.

There are countries who do this exceptionally well. And I think it’s really important that they step up. And there are countries in NATO. And that’s one of the things that we’ve asked our allies in NATO to do because they do have the capability and the capacity to do that. And when you get the police online – and I would argue certainly even in a counterinsurgency, at least if not more important than the security forces themselves than the military forces, in order to succeed. That’s why, in priorities in Afghanistan, that first brigade-sized effort really needs to be trainers, because the faster I can develop them, the sooner they’re going to take over and the sooner we’re going to disengage. And that is the same way it is in Iraq as well.

Last question.

Q: I work over here in the Senate. I, like a lot of Americans, have both family and friends in the guard/reserve. And my question to you, Admiral, is with the current operational tempo of the National Guard and reserve, with so many citizen soldiers being used for so long, do you see this trend continuing? And do you see the one week of the month; two weeks a year model every coming back?

ADM. MULLEN: Again, I can’t be perfectly predictive, but I don’t see one weekend a month and two weeks a year as one of the choices in the near future. We could not – and my hats off to the guard and reserve – we could not be anywhere close to where we are right now without the incredible service and support of the guard and reserve. And I think there are some areas that are changing forever. And it’s changing so fast and we’re fighting a war, so it’s hard to figure out where it’s going to end up. And I think part of that is the guard and reserve.

We’ve taken an extraordinary amount of money to invest in equipment for the guard and reserve, and we expect that to come online in the next four or five years. That’s vastly different from the way it used to be. Clearly the training requirements – I mean, the equipment is going to be the same equipment that the active-duty Army gets. We’re working our way towards the – I mean, Secretary Gates when he signed the policy a year ago January that says we need to get to a point. The policy being one year out, five years back before we rotate you again, the predictability associated with that is very important. Equally important has been the incredible support by so many of our employers throughout the country who have supported the men and women in the guard and reserve and allowed them to go and deploy, serve their country as a citizen soldier, and then come back. And again, my hat’s off to them.

So I’m not sure where it ends up. I know it’s changing. It’s going to be different. And most of us believe that we are in a time that in the future, we are going to be engaged to some level. And I couldn’t tell you how many brigades where, but a time of persistent conflict, which will require our forces from all of our military to be out and about.

Another change, which is ongoing, is the change to an expeditionary force, probably most significant in the Army. And when this – that’s actually happening; that’s the modularity. That’s obviously tied to the fight that we’re in right now as well. So what all that means for the future is not – I can’t write the script but I know it’s going to be different. And I don’t think we’re going back to a weekend a month and two weeks.

Thank you very much.

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