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Q & A with JCS chief Adm. Mike Mullen

Q: Are you nervous yet?

[Laughter.]

ADMIRAL MULLEN: I’m always nervous. Always nervous. Let me say I’m sorry I’m late. As hard as I try to be in control of my life and my schedule, oftentimes I’m not, and so I appreciate your patience.

I’d just say a couple of things and then open it up. I deal with a lot of issues. Certainly how we take care of those who are wounded, their families, and the families of the fallen is right at the center of my life, and I spend, along with my wife, we spend as much time as we possibly can on that, and that’s a lot of time. There probably isn’t a day that goes by where we’re not involved one way or another on that issue. So I very much appreciate your doing that.

People-wise, I think many of you have heard me say [this is the] best military I’ve ever been associated with, best family support, and yet [also the] most pressed.

I look at it from the perspective of our eighth year of war. If I were to dial back to 2000-2001 and look forward and say this is what we’re going to go do, I would have said, from a leadership standpoint, and all the other things that are associated with that, I would have said that would be an extremely ambitious goal. And yet we have and have done it exceptionally well.

We sacrificed, and certainly coming off this Memorial Day weekend, all of us are reminded of, you know, we’ve lost almost 5,000 people, and we’ve got some 36,000 plus — and the plus is not a small plus — that are injured, that are wounded. We’ve got, in my view, a long-term, decades-long commitment that we must make as a country to these people who sacrifice so much.

They’ve done exactly what we’ve asked them to do. They put themselves in harm’s way, and many of them have not come back. And all of that is part of this force that we have, and that I think engenders that commitment or requires that commitment from our country.

The example I’ve used in the past is the Israelis. One of the last things that an Israeli commander does when he takes over a unit, he or she takes over a unit, is to sign for anybody that’s been injured or wounded and their families. It’s an accountable item and they’re inspected on it, and it’s been that way for 60 plus years.

That’s different from the system we have, which is too often push them from DoD to VA back to society and say, “Have a nice life.” That’s not acceptable, and that’s what we’ve got to close, and the only way I know how to do that is to have us work together as agencies and with communities throughout the country, because communities can really do this.

Lots of challenges associated with our people right now. Probably the most significant is just the multiplicity, the multiple deployments. Sort of about three to four is the average for the major units right now in the Army, and I use that as a metric. Certainly that many, if not more, for the Marine Corps, and more than that typically for our Special Forces.

That [is] combined with not enough time when I’m home, and even when I’m home, not enough time at home. I call it home tempo, and I measure that by how many nights I’m sleeping in my own bed. There’s just too much time, when I’m between deployments, spent away from home, away from home base, whether it’s training or other requirements that come up, including advancement requirements in the Army to go to the advance schools in order to qualify for promotion.

I think we’ve got to continue to put pressure on that so that we have people at home and take advantage of the most experienced force we’ve ever had.

Many other things that we are focused on with respect to people, but right now, the top of my list is, I watch dwell time very closely. We need to increase it as rapidly as we can, which is going to be very difficult over the next 18 to 24 months as we come down in Iraq and increase the forces in Afghanistan.

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. It’s how we get there and how we lead between now and then that’s absolutely critical with respect to achieving that.

Q: You mentioned in recent testimony that troops in RC East [in Afghanistan] had absorbed counterinsurgency warfare almost as a way of life. That clearly didn’t happen overnight. Wasn’t that the doing of Gen. [David] McKiernan, and what went wrong there?

MULLEN: I was struck, as I think I indicated in testimony, by two, there were two things that struck me in my most recent visit. One was that the 3rd Brigade of the 10th Mountain Division, which had been there — I was there in April, I think — had been there less than three months. 30 percent of that brigade had prior Afghanistan experience, and their ramp-up time was virtually minimal. And I think that’s a model for all of us for how we resource Afghanistan in the future. We must take advantage of experience.

Secondly, in the FOBs that I visited, both with the 3rd of the 10th, and I think the other one was the 4th of the 25th, which had not been there very long either, I was just so impressed at the very junior level that everything that was said by our soldiers and their leaders was at the heart of counterinsurgency, how they fought, how they talked, how they engaged. They talked about engaging the populace, etc.

I think it was a combination of the experience and a combination of the understanding of the need that was expressed in those two brigades, and what they were doing. The 3rd of the 10th … was the last big unit that we kind of needed to get into RC East in order to get the footprint about right, and those were the forces that Gen. McKiernan had asked for.

My expectation in the East is that … those forces will, they are making a difference, and they’ll continue to make a difference this year.

That has nothing to do with Gen. McKiernan at all. The decision about Gen. McKiernan was one that was tied to a time for change in leadership. There was nothing specific that he did wrong. This is a question that oftentimes gets asked. It was my judgment that with the experience level and the talent level that we had with [Lt.] Gen. [Stanley] McChrystal and [Lt.] Gen. [David] Rodriguez, it was time to make a change.

It was tied to new leadership; it was tied to a new strategy, much broader, much more comprehensive strategy. And my view is when you have that kind of talent available, that rich, that was part of the equation as well.

So it was a combination of both the time for change as well as extraordinary talent on deck, and when you’re at war, I want the absolute best hitter I’ve got at the plate. That’s Stan McChrystal.

Q: But Gen. McKiernan was your guy, you all vetted him, you all put him in position. What was it that made you feel like he couldn’t handle the remaining typically eight or 10 months in that position?

MULLEN: There wasn’t an “it.” I mean, people are in search of something specific that happened. It was my judgment over a period of months in dealing with him, and it was the combination of — obviously, I mean literally starting from a new administration — we put together a comprehensive strategy. There’s much more focus there. It was a much clearer understanding of what the needs were and that there was, again, this combination of the newness that was there and an opportunity for fresh thinking, and somebody who also clearly, through personal exposure to me because he’s the director of my staff and been so for the last year, was the right guy.

Q: Do you think that dismissal was handled correctly, properly?

MULLEN: I think it was.

Q: He being a four-star, in, that position with that kind of career …

MULLEN: We are at war. I need the best talent I’ve got leading this effort, period. And that’s priority number one.

Q: It’s really an unusual thing to have done. It’s the first time in a generation. Should we have been doing this all along, the best hitter in the lineup? Bring in the pinch-hitter when it’s —

MULLEN: I spend an awful lot of time trying to pick the right people for the right jobs at the three and four-star level.

And there’s no job, in my view, more critical to the United States of America and the United States military than that job. And so I spent an awful lot of time on that … to try to get it right, and obviously made my recommendation to [Defense Secretary Robert Gates], and he accepted that.

I recognize these are very hard decisions. Gen. McKiernan is a very distinguished military officer with a long career. All of that notwithstanding, you know, when I’m in a war, I need the best guy I got there. All the other things notwithstanding, and that’s what I’ve got coming, assuming [McChrystal] gets confirmed, which hasn’t happened yet.

Q: Well, if there’s no one thing, is there a sense that we’re not making the kind of progress that we should be making in Afghanistan, that there’s not innovative thinking and new thought about how to make better progress?

MULLEN: Well, all of this evolves over time. Clearly, we’ve been, and I’ve been, very frank about this … Afghanistan has been underresourced for a significant period of time. We called it an economy of force. That’s not the case anymore, when we get these [additional] forces in.

[Afghanistan] has not been the first priority. Iraq has been the first priority. We’re now shifted to Afghanistan as the main effort, and there is a lot more focus on Afghanistan. There’s a comprehensive plan and strategy, a comprehensive strategy which is now being developed and a campaign plan which is evolving out there as we speak. So all those things are tied to this change and the other changes.

We have a new Ambassador out there. We have a Special Representative that now focuses on Afghanistan and Pakistan.

It’s not all about Afghanistan. … Pakistan, the linkage between Afghanistan and Pakistan, two very distinct countries, but they are neighbors, and they are inextricably linked, and they are linked in this fight.

So there’s just been an awful lot certainly that has evolved from me as the chairman over the last year, year and a half, focusing specifically on this mission.

Q: Do you foresee additional changes in top leadership either in the war or back home?

MULLEN: I don’t see any right now, but I’m also not perfectly predictive of the future. But there’s nothing in the winds that comes to mind.

I mean this, I’ve been looking at, for the better part of six or eight months, the requirements to relieve [Gen. Raymond] Odierno and McKiernan at some point, and these are daisy-chain issues that affect an awful lot of people that you have to look, start looking that far in advance to understand who the possibilities are, to get inputs, and I, and I had cast that net far and wide long before this decision was made, which gets back to, in that input from an awful lot of people, Stan McChrystal comes out, and Dave Rodriguez, they come out as, you know, at the top of the Army every single time.

And it’s part of my responsibility to try to both get this right and then set up the timing so that it works.

Q: Afghanistan is a landlocked country, difficult place to get supplies to, to supply folks. As you build up a bigger force there, it’s getting harder to supply them. You can’t supply them overland through Pakistan as easily as you had been. What’s the long-term supply situation there? How do you build that up and maintain it without sort of getting to a breaking point?

MULLEN: There’s always risk in a war zone. We’re going through, right now with the changeout, with a couple things. One is the additional forces, the additional 10,000 or so troops that — the Marines — which are headed there literally as we speak.

In addition to the timing of this, we’re changing it. We’re rotating a bunch of forces both in and out, and we’ve been working on it. We knew that this eye of the needle was going to occur, so we’ve been planning it for many, many months. Its execution, which I pay a lot of attention to, has gone exceptionally well.

Months before that, we were doing planning about multiple ways to get stuff in and out of Afghanistan because it is landlocked and because I didn’t want to get locked into, or be completely vulnerable on, one path.

So we’ve done an awful lot of that, and I’m comfortable that we’re in pretty good shape with respect to that, not invulnerable, but I’ve got other choices, and we’re doing fine. And a lot of good people have done a lot of good work to get us here including [Air Force Gen.] Duncan McNabb and his people at [U.S. Transportation Command], who are in many ways the unsung heroes of these wars because they have, they have fed the fights extraordinarily well, and this is just another example.

Q: You’ve got the airlift that you need to get there?

MULLEN: Yeah. I’ve got the airlift, I’ve got the sealift, and the resources.

Q: What are our options, if we have any, with North Korea? What legitimate options are there, short of an invasion?

MULLEN: Well, the path right now is clear, and in my view, rightfully so, is in the diplomatic corps. And it’s headed … to the U.N., and I think actually international pressure, while seemingly sometimes doesn’t work overnight, in my experience, it can create options and it can create change.

This is a growing level of belligerence, a growing level of destabilization, a growing level of isolation by [Kim Jong-il] for his country. I actually don’t know how long he can sustain that strategy. One of his historically strongest supporters has been China, and China has come out pretty strongly opposing [North Korea’s recent nuclear weapon test] this, and Russia, and Russia has come out pretty strongly.

So I don’t know how much of this he can do. I honestly don’t. His capabilities, and none of this has been confirmed yet in terms of the nuclear test, but if what he says is true, one, we weren’t surprised; two, because of his previous public announcements, I think one on the 29th of April, in particular, that if there was not an apology received, he would respond with a nuclear test or something close to that.

But at the same time, you know, he’s, as you do in most any systems, you continue to test, you advance your systems, and, you know, longer-term, theoretically, he most recently, a few weeks ago tried to get an ICBM into space, and failed at that, but it was further down the test road than the last one.

We’ll see on this test when we understand it a little bit or a lot better in detail, but theoretically he gets to a point where he has an ICBM that he could put a nuclear warhead and, in fact, threaten the United States, and we all understand that.

So, right now, there aren’t any, you know, you don’t take any options off the table, but clearly the right path, in my view, is the diplomatic path, political and diplomatic path, and that’s what we’re on, and we’ll see.

Q: You said you watched dwell time closely.

MULLEN: Yes.

Q: The Navy and the Marine Corps, especially, are doing a lot of things, sort of business as usual. The [Marine Expeditionary Units], for instance, continue to work up, continue to deploy. The last couple of MEUs have not been active on either [war] front as far as putting troops on the ground. So does that strategic reserve concept still make sense? To have 8,000 troops training to not go be a part of the war that —

MULLEN: You know when I talk to the [Marine Corps] Commandant about this, what the Commandant is starting to see is a little more dwell time. He’s starting to see it break a little bit, break open, and that’s not just last week. He’s made those comments over the last several months.

Secondly, the reserve piece, and you’ve obviously followed this, and you could probably lay, you know, you could probably tell me which ones went in and which ones didn’t, we’ve used a lot of them in theater. We put a lot of them ashore, and in some cases we haven’t.

Every single, every single [U.S. Central Command] commander that I’ve dealt with in recent years, including the current one, is not anxious to commit his strategic reserve. I go back from [Gen. John] Abizaid on, and I’ve dealt with every one of them. Because you don’t know what’s going to happen possibly somewhere else. And you’d like to reserve that if you don’t need it.

I think the Commandant, in terms of providing forces, very much supports that. So from the joint perspective, I’m very comfortable with it at this point.

Again, there is a build in dwell time, but it’s nowhere close to two to one, which is what we need right now, although we are — I don’t know the exact time line, but we either have or will in the very near future deploy the third battalion that was generated as a result of moving the Marine Corps from [175,000 to 202,000 active-duty personnel].

The other thing that the Marine Corps is building are these enablers, which we were short of when these wars started. So I think the Marine Corps has got it focused pretty well, and right now I’m pretty comfortable. I’m more concerned about dwell time. I’m concerned for everybody about dwell time.

But the one I’m concerned the most about is the Army because while it is at 547,000 active duty, they haven’t built extra brigades yet. So the decision that Secretary Gates made, as far as I’m concerned, to stop at 45 [brigades] with [an end strength of 547,000 active-duty soldiers], as opposed to build out 48 brigades with 547, was a critical decision to help us build out more capability, deployable capability, sooner, and it’s another way to both get at that, get stop-loss moving off the books as rapidly as we can as well.

With the demand signals that I see for the next 18 months or so, that light which I see in Army dwell time, it’s going to take a little while before it gets a lot brighter. But it’s there.

Q: Does that affect morale for the troops that are out there on this reserve, seemingly doing nothing while everyone else is fighting; does that affect the morale of these guys who say I’m not home, I’m not at the war, why am I —

Q: I don’t know. You’d have to ask them. I mean you —

Q: You don’t hear that when you’re out [in the field]?

MULLEN: No. No. But truth be told, I haven’t gone out to see … the MEU that’s been out there. [But] when I talk to young men and women around the globe and just engage with them about their lives and what they’re doing, and if they’re not in theater, most of them will tell me, I’d like to go.

Now, there are constraints they have in their own lives. When did you go last? “I was just there, just got back.” We know there’s an extraordinary pressure on families, and we need more time with our families and soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, Coast Guard — they’ll all say that as well.

But as has always been the case in our military, this is the war we’re in and they want to be in it. So someone [who] wasn’t specifically in it at a given point in time, certainly that they might be frustrated. But these wars are not going to end overnight, and there are individuals who may not be there now who will have opportunities in the future.

Overall, the morale is exceptionally high in theater, on bases. It doesn’t mean we don’t have significant challenges; we do. But as I look at morale and measure it from many units across all the services, it’s up.

Q: Speaking of the Army and dwell time, [Army Chief of Staff] Gen. [George] Casey said yesterday that he expects to have 10 Army and Marine brigades and regiments deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan for 10. Is that your view also, and how can that be sustained and where will all those troops be, in Iraq or Afghanistan?

MULLEN: I haven’t talked to Gen. Casey about what he said. I’ll try to answer that from two perspectives. Generally, we, the chiefs, believe we live in a time of persistent conflict, and that means some level of rotational commitment for the foreseeable future, so you could say 10 to 15 years, whatever, that we are going to have all the forces, all the services, including the Army, our expeditionary forces, some portion of that force will be rotating somewhere in the world.

Hard to say exactly where that would be. You could surmise that there may be a requirement in Iraq and Afghanistan. I don’t know, and I’ll come back to that specifically, but that strategic view is something we all share. Persistent conflict, some level of rotation, and without being precise about exactly what it should be. In the Army’s case, could be four brigades, could be six brigades, could be 10 brigades. I don’t know.

But when we build [the Army] out to 45 [brigades], and down the road looking at force structure, which is what the [Quadrennial Defense Review] is going to do, [we will have to ask] whether the 45 should be bigger or not.

As far as Iraq is concerned, right now our level of forces is driven by the commitments of this country, and there are two. One is to be down to 35,000 to 50,000 by 31 August 2010. And that’s the decision of the President of the United States, and that’s what we’re going to do.

And secondly, the Status of Forces Agreement, which is an agreement between Iraq and the United States, which has all American troops out of Iraq at the end of 2011.

Those are the rules right now and that’s what we’re complying with. All of us believe that we need to have and would like to have — including the Iraqis — a long-term relationship with Iraq not unlike other countries, a [military-to-military] relationship. I don’t know what those requirements are right now. I think it’s too early to understand what that is.

So my glide slope right now in Iraq is to those two numbers. That’s what we’re planning for. Should Iraq initiate, and the United States have, you know, both a discussion and agreement that we would have forces beyond that, then we would. But that decision has not been made yet.

And then the issue in Afghanistan is I just don’t know. Afghanistan is going to go on awhile. My immediate priority, which gets back to the new strategy, the focus on Afghanistan, is to start to turn this thing as rapidly as possible, and I think we’ve got to have a big impact in 2009 and a big impact in 2010 in terms of stemming the violence.

And that puts us in a position, I think, to make progress down the road. We’ve had an increase in violence since 2006 every year, and that’s why getting these forces in is so important. The new leadership is so important. The new strategy is so important because we have to have an impact in the next 12 to 18 months. That’s what’s right out in front of me. What happens beyond that I don’t know.

Q: In Iraq, do you think you’ll meet the June 30 deadline to pull [U.S.] troops out of the cities?

MULLEN: Yes. Unless the Iraqis come to us and say we don’t want you to do that. I don’t think we will; we will. We’re on a track to do that. We’re out of most of the cities right now. The two big ones that there might be some smaller footprint, but the two big cities of, that we’re focused on right now, one is Baghdad and the other is Mosul, where there’s a pretty tough fight still going on, but the plan is to be out. That’s the agreement.

Q: Do you foresee a larger presence of troops in Afghanistan to meet the schedule you’ve laid out now to stem the violence there?

MULLEN: We’ve given Gen. McKiernan all the troops he’s asked for right now. We’re going to have new leadership go in, and we’ve, again, we’ve got a new strategy, so towards the end of the year or early next spring, we’re going to make an assessment. We got a new commander there on the ground. He’ll make an assessment, and he’ll come in and tell us how he sees it and what he needs or what he doesn’t need, and that’s where we are right now.

Q: Why do you think Mosul stayed so tough? That’s been a city that’s flared up and calmed down —

MULLEN: Several — yeah, well, a couple of times certainly. It is, it has become the last stand for al-Qaida in Iraq. And I think part of that is physical location, proximity to borders. It’s where they went. And so it’s a very, very tough fight. It’s a fight. I was just there, I was just up north on my last trip, and I went through the campaign plan with Gen. Bob Caslen, who is the commander of the 25th ID and the commander of [Multi-National Division North] right now, and, you know, we’ve done very well.

It’s not unlike Baghdad. This takes time. It’s a very methodical campaign. They’ve made a lot of progress. We’ve made a lot of progress. The Iraqi Security Forces are there. The Iraqi police are doing well there, and in particular, the National Police Brigade that’s there. So we’re working our way through it. It’s just going to take some time.

Q: There’s concern — and you got a taste of this on the Hill the last few weeks — that budget concerns are driving force structure, planning decisions, and that strategic needs and threat assessments are now secondary. As we go in now in the middle of the [fiscal 2011] budget bill and starting the QDR, which is driving the other?

MULLEN: I just don’t accept that. I mean we’ve had budgets which have grown dramatically since 2000 and we’ve been incredibly well resourced by the American people, and I appreciate that. As I said in my statements and would reiterate here, and I’ve done almost every budget myself since ’97 — I mean, you know my background. It’s a budgeting and programming background, and it’s also what you do as a service chief, among other things.

The work that was done here and the work that Secretary Gates did was the best work I’ve seen in that period of time. I can’t go back before then because I just didn’t have, I don’t have any experience. But his personal involvement, the time that he spent, the clear direction, the guidance, the interaction with the service chiefs and the principal members of his staff was extraordinary, and he did it from a strategic approach, and the priorities of people, and I, believe me, I am right there.

I think if we want to — and I’ve been in this town a long time — and we do talk about future threats, and many of us live in the future because of that, if you want to get the future right, make sure we have it right for our people and their families.

And make sure as pressure comes on the budget, we don’t do what we’ve always done, which is drop the money out of people programs first. Not salaries, not even bonuses. Bonuses need to be focused where we need them. But we drop it out of housing; we drop it out of [military construction]; we drop it out of commissaries; we drop it out of medical [care].

We drop it out of all these family programs, and it’s because our DNA is to buy stuff, and that’s all the services, including my own, and that’s why focusing on people first here is so important, as we move forward.

And if we get that right, we’ll be just fine in the future, and if we get it wrong, no matter what we buy, we won’t, the people piece.

The second piece is the piece to move the pendulum, to further rebalance. You can’t swing this pendulum all the way to the unconventional [warfare] side. Nobody could do that. Nobody wants to do that. But it’s, continue to move that pendulum to achieve acceptable balance.

Then the third piece is the acquisition piece which is so critical and long overdue, that we get our acquisition act in order. And that’s the big “we.” That’s military; that’s civilian; that’s Congress. That’s everybody involved in this process. That’s contractors.

Otherwise, we’re not going to be able to afford much at all. So those three pieces are huge, and I thought the work was incredibly effective work, strategically driven, like none I had ever seen, and I think we’re going to have to figure out a way to do more of that work.

When budgets go up like they did, we lose our ability to prioritize. We lose our budget discipline. We lose our analytical capability. We don’t have to do the analysis. And those things are things we should be doing whether budgets are going up or coming down.

And this pressure certainly is going to force us to make sure that those skills are as good as they’ve ever been, and rightfully so. And we’re going to have to make some hard decisions. He clearly has and I applaud him.

Q: More hard decisions in the 2011 budget?

MULLEN: Absolutely.

Q: It seems like there is a plan. It seems like there’s a vision among the senior leaders on what you want to do. What else might have to change as far as the acquisition —

MULLEN: I’m not sure I totally answered your other question. I think that we are, at least where I am on this, is there’s a combination of how we look at the future, which is a mix of capabilities I know I need and threats that I know are out there. And we’ve swung, you know, not long ago, a few years ago, we were strictly threat-based. We moved into capabilities, and at least it’s my assessment there’s a combination there that we’ve got to be very careful and precise about.

We’re going to need both of those. I also believe that many of the capabilities that we’re talking about for this, for unconventional warfare, are capabilities we’ll need for the future. So there’s a near-term need, but those will be out there for the future as well.

Q: will the QDR be ready in time to influence the 2011 budget? The QDR is not formally due to Congress for nine months, but the 2011 budget is going to get underway in about two months; right?

MULLEN: When we were going through this budget process, last fall when we first started talking about where are we going to go, I mean literally Secretary Gates and myself, and a handful of other people, there were, there are four big pieces here, I think, that create a tremendous opportunity to define the future.

First was the 2010 budget amendment. I mean what is extraordinary here is out of the entirety of the budget, this did not move a lot of money. It is the money that moved that was the message, not, not the totality of the budget. The 2010 budget, which is obviously now on the Hill in debate, the 2011 budget which we’re working on right now, the QDR, which we agreed months ago we would have to work in parallel with the 2011 budget, so we’re doing that, and then the Nuclear Posture Review.

Those four things that really presented themselves over a relatively short period of time, 12 months, something like that, present an enormous opportunity to shape the future, and that’s the goal. We’ve known the timeline for the QDR is obviously going to be what it is, and we’re working hard on that to understand how to get far enough along in the QDR, and we can do this, to impact the budget decisions in 2011.

That’s the plan. That’s what we’re doing right now. Same thing in the [Nuclear Posture Review]. We want to do that, the same kind of thing. This is, quite frankly, part of the overall strategy to try to move where we want to go into the future.

Q: So then to the question of what else might fall off?

MULLEN: Don’t know. I mean I could apply that question to before we started the 2010 discussions and work. There were no predecisions here, and there are none with respect to what’s next. Instructive in this, I think, , is the list of things that didn’t get decided in 2010. So [the tactical aircraft] shortfall is one. Amphibious capability is another. 48 brigade — force structure.

The most important — my view — the most important part of the QDR is what’s the force planning construct for the future? The QDR will do a lot of things and it will make a lot of recommendations and decisions, but what’s the force planning construct of the future? That then guides force structure decisions and that guides investments. Those decisions haven’t been made yet. The QDR is going to do that.

Q: What are some things in the force-shaping construct that might need to change? What are some, maybe, Cold War-era things that are just outdated and no longer apply?

MULLEN: You’re asking me to get out there in front of this. I just don’t think it’s that easy. I’m not a, I’m not one that’s used the Cold War rhetoric. You know I’m somebody that has grown up in a time of great change, out of the Cold War into the challenges we had in the ’90s, looking at the wars that we’re in right now, and I’ve seen a great number of our systems that we built a long time ago, whether it’s the B-52 or, you know, an Aegis destroyer, or a Tomahawk missile, or an F-16, an F-15 or a P-3, you know, I’ve — or a brigade, I’ve seen them change and adapt, in some cases pretty fast.

When you look at wherever we were when we weren’t doing counterinsurgency, we make up our mind we’re going to do that, and … we’re now the best counterinsurgency force in the world. That happened pretty fast, driven by the necessity of war — I understand that. But also a great strategy and great leadership.

So I don’t put a lot of value in the rhetoric about what’s Cold War and what isn’t. We make a lot of investments. I think we need to leverage those investments, and then transform them where we can.

Q: The two [major contingency operation] planning model, do you see a need to [still] plan for two major wars?

MULLEN: That’s at the heart of our discussion on force planning construct. What is it for the future? We’re working our way through that right now. You want me to tell you how it’s going to come out. I honestly don’t know how it’s going to come out.

Q: How about timeframe?

MULLEN: QDR? Well, the QDR timeframe is this fall.

Q: And you’re going to have to have — some decisions have to be made in order to move your budget through [the White House Office of Management and Budget] and get it through that process.

MULLEN: We’ve got a lot of smart people that understand where the wickets are and when the goals are and when we have to meet them. And we’ll meet them. There’s a plan. I’m not saying it’s easy. It’s a huge challenge, but we understand where we are. I understand where I am on this, and I also understand the opportunity that’s there, and these opportunities don’t come very often.

Q: A question on war colleges. There’s been some questioning recently on their relevance and costs, and there’s been a call even for you to maybe redefine the mission of the National War College. Would you like to comment on that? Do you feel it’s necessary?

MULLEN: I think the war colleges are absolutely vital, and having curricula that stimulates our young majors and lieutenant commanders and our lieutenant colonels and colonels and commanders and captains and so many other countries who provide students to these great institutions is critical to moving to the future.

All of us are in constant review of what are we doing there and what should we change, both individually in the services as well as over at National Defense [University]. It’s something that I spent time on myself to make sure we have it right, and I look for it to continue to be the gem that it is, and I just don’t agree with those who think there’s a better way. It’s proven itself over a significant part of our history. And from that standpoint, I wouldn’t touch that model.

Q: There was some testimony last week, there’s a professor emeritus from the War College who said that she felt like that college and the Industrial College have sort of become orphans, that they fall directly under you, and that you need to take steps to clarify the mission of the National War College; do you agree?

MULLEN: Again … this is an institution whose curriculum I spend time on, and there’s always opportunities to improve, particularly as fast as the world is changing, and we try to adapt to that, and we do that, you know, fairly constantly, to the world that we’re living in.

Q: The White House has made no secret of its desire to change the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. Until recently, Pentagon spokespersons in public comments said no one was doing any specific planning towards that end, but then [Pentagon spokesman] Geoff Morrell made some comments last week that you and Secretary Gates are working to address the challenges associated with the White House’s broadly stated goal. What are those challenges? What are you and the Joint Chiefs and [the Office of the Secretary of Defense] doing to address them and where does that stand now?

MULLEN: The President has made his intent very clear, that he wants to see this law and policy change. It’s important that we all constantly recognize this is a law so not even the President himself can change it. He’s got to go to Congress and ask that it be changed. And in recognizing that, I have had discussions with the chiefs about this and what it might mean.

I am the principal military advisor to the President, and I owe him two things on this. One is an assessment of the impact if and when the law changes, and two is an implementation plan, and I’ve done internal work on my staff with respect to that, but I haven’t created a study group, and I haven’t created a group to go out and survey or do anything like that.

So that’s really where we are right now. We’ll see, you know, I recognize again the intent of the commander in chief, and if and when the law changes, you know, we’ll follow the law, as we do now.

Q: Without naming names, could you broadly characterize the views of the chiefs on that issue?

MULLEN: No, I just wouldn’t do that. Those are [internal] discussions. I don’t discuss that stuff with anybody on any subject.

Q: Is it contentious? Or is it, without characterizing the specifics, is this an issue that will go, could go relatively easily or an issue that’s going to be very contentious and difficult?

MULLEN: What I said this weekend, and I’ll just repeat, as the senior military leader of a force that is in its eighth year of war and pressed, as we’ve talked about, I think it’s important that as we move forward in this debate, that it not become a polarizing debate that has the force in the middle, and that’s going to take responsible leadership on every aspect of this discussion.

I want to emphasize” responsible leadership. … We’ve had preliminary discussions. I’ve had preliminary discussions with the President about this. And I think it’s important, as we look to this change, that it be done in a way that doesn’t disrupt the force at a time where it’s under a lot of stress, and that to me means in a measured, deliberate way over some time to be determined. And I don’t know what that would be.

Right now, again, we follow the law as it is obviously in place and we’ll continue to do that no matter what it is.

Q: When you say every aspect of leadership, you mean military, civilian, defense, Congress, White House?

MULLEN: Broader. I think —

Q: Broader than that? Broader than that would be what?

MULLEN: We have a process in this country that I — I’m sure you all cherish — I cherish. We have laws. Those laws get passed by Congress. Those individuals are elected by the American people, and if the American people want to change this law, it comes up through them, they change the law, we comply.

Q: But in your view and as someone who has to advise the Secretary and the President, are you satisfied with the law as is?

MULLEN: My view, quite frankly, isn’t important here. My responsibility is to carry out the law. That’s what I’m doing. And that’s what I will do and that’s what the military does and will do.

Q: But your view is important as an advisory role and someone who knows the military.

MULLEN: But my advice is private advice. It’s private advice not just on this subject; it’s private advice on every subject. And you would ask me to give my private advice now on what I tell the President publicly. I’m not going to do that.

Q: How would it have changed your time as a service chief had [“don’t ask, don’t tell”] been repealed when you were the [chief of naval operations]? How would it have changed the Navy when you were a service Chief if you had had to operate under the new plan?

MULLEN: It’s a hypothetical. It didn’t.

Q: You say you think it’s important to proceed in a deliberate way, especially during a time of war, on this issue. In your discussions with the President, can you say whether he’s heard that? Have you communicated that to him in terms of pressure to move this, change this policy, knowing his views, knowing, you know, that he wants this change?

MULLEN: Again, I’m not going to talk about what I talk to the President about, not on this subject or any other.

Q: Do you find him to be responsive to views that he doesn’t necessarily agree with? If he were to hear from the troops, from the American people, we don’t want to change this, would you see him changing his mind about his opinion?

MULLEN: Let me not talk about “don’t ask, don’t tell” with respect to that. I have many opportunities to speak with him. He listens. He is a man who listens to a diversity of opinions. I think that’s pretty well known. I can only confirm that from my own personal experience he does, and then, and then takes all that in and like any president, he makes hard decisions.

That’s how he has approached it, and I’m very comfortable with that, that he does listen, and that I have an opportunity as a senior military advisor to advise him, and then he makes a decision, and we follow.

Q: You say you’ve discussed it with the service chiefs, but you haven’t gone out and done a general assessment among the troops. Is there maybe a plan to do that at some point in the next year or so? Canvas the force?

MULLEN: What I want to do, what I would like to achieve, is an objective assessment of the impact, and I think I owe that to him, and the specifics of how, I’ve made no decisions on exactly how to do that.

Q: You began by talking about the stress on the force and the, what we owe as a nation to the people who have served. The services, in particular the Army, have suffered a spate of suicides. Is a symptom of maybe a deeper depression or emotional wound that our troops have suffered? Are we doing enough on that issue? Do we understand enough about what has driven that rise in suicides and what more can be done to stop — to prevent getting to this stage at which, you know, now we’re looking in the rear view mirror?

MULLEN: Well, I’m not sure we’re looking at — I mean, I guess we are looking in the rear view mirror obviously with tragedies which have occurred, but they continue, and so we’re doing everything we possibly can right now to try to understand both the cause and address it, but that doesn’t mean we understand everything.

I think the core of this solution is in the leadership, period, and that leaders, enlisted and officer, junior and senior, need to be so close to their people that they can pick off where there are signs, they can pick them off and get them help. And that takes a constancy of engagement and leadership that is absolutely mandatory right now to get at this.

I’ll give you two examples. My wife and I were in Fort Campbell [Ky.] mid-February. There were already eight suicides at Campbell, not all completely through the investigation, but, which was an alarming number to me. Roughly 20,000-plus troops at Campbell. The two-star commander has been deployed in Iraq, in Afghanistan through the better part of a year. Leadership was very engaged, but certainly it was a large and alarming number there so early, and looking for answers clearly. I mean nobody, nobody was sitting on the sideline on this.

Certainly a concern to me, including some description of them, those who deployed, those who hadn’t, that kind of thing, but I think it does speak to the overall pressure and the stress. That’s part of it, clearly.

But as we look at the data, the information we have, many of these are based on relationships, failed relationships, failing relationships, financial problems.

We need to make sure that we understand, leaders understand, not just docs, but leaders understand the impact of medication and when, particularly when a medication changes, what does that mean?

A couple months later, mid-April, we’re at Fort Hood [Texas], 54,000 soldiers at Fort Hood. And [Lt.] Gen. [Rick] Lynch, who is the [III] Corps Commander out there, relieved Gen. Odierno, has made that Corps the “Families First Corps.” That’s the title.

He has focused on relieving stress. He’s not focused on suicide. He is not focused on any particular manifestation of stress. He’s working hard to relieve stress.

So, 54,000 soldiers, and by mid-April, they hadn’t had a motorcycle accident kill a soldier. They hadn’t had a car accident kill a soldier. And they had had one suicide. So there’s a message there that is huge. Work hours [end at] 1700, no kidding, 1500 on Thursday, no kidding, you’re gone, that’s the family day. You can’t work weekends. And it was enforced. So he was … getting them out of the workplace.

I can’t say that’s a one-to-one correlation [between Fort Hood and Fort Campbell]. I don’t know that, except when you look at just those two and the differences that those two examples expose in terms of what’s going on, there’s something going on at Hood. There have been, you know, a couple suicides since that time, but there’s something going on at Hood that is, I think, extraordinary that we need to emulate until we find something better.

Q: In the same vein, you started out talking about care of the troops and particular the wounded. We’ve done many stories since the Walter Reed controversy broke about unfairness in the disability process, problems with VA, problems with DoD and VA communicating with each other, problems with the Warrior Transition Units in the Army. What do you think the most critical gaps are? What are the biggest and most critical gaps in the net to take care of wounded warriors, in your mind?

MULLEN: I think the [Disability Evaluation System] is still moving way too slow. And that we need to figure out a way … there’s a balance here between, as I’m sure you know, you’ve got achieve some level of medical stability before you can get into the process, being processed for disability.

That’s one. Secondly, I think the system, the Department of Defense, VA, and communities throughout the country, but particularly the first two, we spend way too much on the term “disability,” and we don’t focus on ability. I think we’ve got the wrong vision for these young people who sacrifice so much.

We have to tap the future potential. Certainly compensate them for all they’ve been through, and that is a principal focus, but it is, historically, it’s been the dominant focus, and I think the vision is about the future; it’s not about what happened. And the system is very focused about what happens and how can we move you through this.

What the wounded and their families want is they want their life back. They want this to take only the right amount of time, and too often it takes too long. So I think there’s still a huge gap. Despite the [pilot project to streamline the Disability Evaluation System], which has, you know, been instructive, we need to move it faster.

Now, Secretary Gates and [VA] Secretary [Erik] Shinseki are shoulder to shoulder on this, as are {Deputy Defense Secretary William] Lynn and [Deputy VA Secretary Scott] Gould have also synched on this. In this area, in particular, they’ve moved quickly.

I think a huge gap is the availability of mental health care, and even though we’ve hired hundreds and hundreds of additional mental health professionals, we still have a long way to go with that.

When we go on base, when I sit down with my wife and talk to 300 spouses up at [Fort] Drum [N.Y.] or to 150 or so down at Campbell, [about] medical care, it’s the mental [health care] piece as well.

Q: [The shortage of mental health care workers] is a nationwide problem.

MULLEN: I understand. I understand it’s nationwide, but I worry that we accept that as opposed to push through it. I have seen organizations which have mental health providers lined up pro bono 10 deep to help our people, unlimited.

I know there’s a shortfall. I’m not trying to wish that away, but I worry about that shortfall, the statement about it, just people kind of just saying, “Well, we’ve just got to put up with the shortfall.” We can’t. We’ve got to close that gap.

And so one of the things Secretary Gates has talked about recently is, can we figure out a way to educate more, pay for more mental health education, and in return have them come work in the military, as an example?

It’s a gap that we’re working to fill, but we’ve got a long way to go, and that’s the whole issue of [post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury], and what does that mean and how are we going to handle that?

There’s a gap in what I see as the overall vision. My overall vision is these families are taken care for the rest of their lives — the families of the fallen and the wounded. And that means different things to different people.

But their dreams haven’t changed. And some of you have heard me say this before. They want to go to school. They want an education. They’d like to have jobs. They’d like their kids to go to school. They’d like to own a home. The path may have changed to getting to the dream, but the pillars of this — DoD, VA and communities throughout the land — need to merge to meet that vision.

And it’s doable. I’ve seen it in individual cases. We need to somehow reach many more than we are.

Q: Thank you very much.

MULLEN: Thanks.