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Transcript of editorial board with Adm. Mike Mullen

Adm. Mike Mullen, the former chief of naval operations who replaced Marine Gen. Peter Pace as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Oct. 1, met with Military Times editors and reporters Nov. 27 for a wide-ranging discussion of the issues and challenges facing the U.S. military. Below is a transcript of the discussion, edited slightly for clarity.

Q: Admiral, we are pleased to have you back in your new role, and I thought you might have some opening statement and then we’ll hit you with the questions.

Adm. Mike Mullen: OK. Just briefly, it’s good to be back, and I want to express my gratitude for this opportunity. I actually spend time every week reading your publications. It’s kind of interesting, having transitioned from a service chief to this job. I started to do this, I think, about a month or so before I took over. Now read all the Times [newspapaers] for each service, and I find that to be very helpful by way of understanding or seeing what the issues might be or what concerns might be in all the services, and how the leadership is addressing them.

I really use it in ways to stay current on those, see what someone thinks the hot button issues are, and it gives me a way to both ask questions and connect with the service chiefs that I think is very helpful.

I’ve traveled quite a bit in the first couple months, I’ve spent a fair amount of time with the ground forces, in particularly the Army, and not unlike when I was in the Navy, the young soldiers read the Army Times, and so I think you do us a great service in that regard.

So I appreciate that. My wife is very involved in family programs, and she goes through as well and is able to look at what’s going on with families and get some pretty good ideas, and it’s actually kind of a nice leavening of good ideas that are out there to pull on, so I appreciate that.

In the first couple of months that I’ve been here, I’ve tried to focus heavily on three top-level priorities, one of which is to work through a military strategy for the Middle East. That’s the part of the world that is most challenging right now. Stability there is very important, and it’s not very stable, as we speak, and from the military perspective, certainly we’ve got to focus on Iraq and Afghanistan.

And we continue to do that, but also all of us don’t have to do that, and I would like our heads up, to be looking, and I have focused on this for some time, at what comes after Iraq and Afghanistan.

Clearly, that region is challenged with Iran, with Syria. This week, as I’m sure you all know, there’s a very important summit taking place out in Annapolis on Middle East peace talks and potentially taking steps to move in the right direction with respect to the Israelis and the Palestinians.

So it’s a region that is much broader than just the focus on Iraq and Afghanistan, and how we as a military can contribute to stability there in the future is really important. So we’re working on that. It will be a few months before we have our arms around what I believe will be a strategy for that, and then how the military fits in.

So that’s top of the list for me. Second is to focus on resetting, revitalizing and reconstituting the force, and that’s to make sure we recognize the stress that’s on the force right now, but it involves more than just that, and I’ll assume I’ll get a question or two on that so I won’t go into great detail. But certainly that concern that’s there.

Secondly, it’s beyond just the stress that’s on the force because we’ve worn out equipment; we’ve got to refresh and revitalize that.

And we’re fighting wars today, but we also have to prepare for tomorrow, and it’s beyond just counterinsurgency kinds of operations. We need to move into a broader view of full-spectrum operations, which involves people, training, equipment, and getting that right for the future.

So that’s kind of the second priority, and then the third one is to rebalance the global risk because we’ve got so many of our forces focused in Central Command.

It’s a very, very challenging time right now, very uncertain, very unpredictable. There’s lots going on in other places of the world. And we are a global force. We’ve got global responsibilities, and tied to that [is] engagement, and deterrence and dissuasion, those kinds of things around the world. We try to balance that, and that’s more a long-term view in terms of what’s important as well. So those three things [are] the big priorities for me.

Lastly, I’d just like to say a couple words about the troops. They are, this is the best Armed Forces that I’ve seen — and I started in the late ‘60s — hands down. Most professional, most capable; they execute exceptionally well. Incredibly well-supported by families of great courage and unflagging support in these very difficult times, and some of you may have heard me say this before — family support has always been important.

I have seen families stand up like they never have before since 9/11. The support of our families is absolutely vital to continue the health of the force, and so in addition to the incredibly great performance of our troops, it’s been that family support which has been so vital as well.

Morale is good. They are devoted, dedicated to what they’re doing in ways that just truly make us all proud. We should all feel very good about what they’re doing, their dedication, their level of professionalism. Their level of excellence is just unmatched in my career.

So with that, I’ll open it up.

Q: Let’s start with the surge, which evidently appears to be working, has worked, and now as we draw the surge down, will we be able to sustain the success that we’ve seen, and what happens when the surge troops are all home?

MULLEN: Predictions are pretty tough. The surge has created a very, very positive change in the security environment over the last many months, and that has created a window of opportunity for the government of Iraq, for the economy of Iraq, those other things that must kick in, and so from the standpoint of what it has done up to this point is, it’s really, I think, a very positive story.

I went there the first week I was in this job and clearly saw that, spoke actually yesterday with both the Commandant of the Marine Corps [Gen. James Conway] and the Vice Chairman [of the Joint Chiefs, Marine Gen. James Cartwright] who were there this last week over Thanksgiving. Both of them said the same thing, that it had — and also spoke with Adm. [William] Fallon [chief of U.S. Central Command] yesterday, who has just returned as well. All three of them — and this is unsolicited — talked about the continued progress even from when I was there in October.

There have been some unexpected things that have been very positive — the concerned local citizens who have taken back their towns, their villages and stood up from a security standpoint and actually have pushed back very hard on al-Qaida in some areas or on insurgents in other areas.

So from that standpoint, it’s created, and I believe will continue to create, improved security over time. That doesn’t mean it’s not a dangerous country; that doesn’t mean that al-Qaida is gone. That doesn’t mean that Baghdad isn’t a violent city. We still have an awful lot of work to do with respect to that, but if I were to compare every statistic that I’ve seen with respect to violence, if you did it now compared to 12 months ago, it’s just enormously better.

So I’m cautiously optimistic, but I’ve said for a long time this is a three-legged stool. It’s got to be — the economy has got to be working. There needs to be political reconciliation, and there’s a window of opportunity now that the surge has provided.

You asked the question in a way that says, “Well, now that the surge is over ...” We’re just starting to bring the first of the five brigades back. In fact, those surge brigades will be there until next summer, until next July, and clearly what we do from a security standpoint through that surge and beyond is going to be up to the commander on the ground.

I certainly am mindful of what’s going on there, but that’s really — [Multi-National Forces Iraq Commander] Gen. Dave Petraeus is the tactical commander there, and I greatly value his input on that and also Adm. Fallon, his boss in CentCom. We continue to make progress. They’re cautiously optimistic.

One of the things that Gen. Petraeus said when he was here before that I thought [had] wisdom in the statement was that there are a lot of events that will happen over the next six months that are difficult to predict, and those events, as they did prior to his testimony in the fall, those events have the potential to drive it in one direction or another. We just don’t know what those will be.

There is local political reconciliation, which is very powerful, going on. When I was there last month, it was clear not just the Iraqi Security Forces were getting better. I was up in Mosul and Tikrit, and the police up there were better, which a year ago was not the case.

So the signs are good, but I think it’s way too early to say that we clearly don’t have a lot of work to do or there aren’t many challenges. There really are and there will be for the foreseeable future.

Q: Admiral, you mentioned the word “stabilization” a little while ago.

MULLEN: Yes.

Q: Military occupational specialties related to stabilization began disappearing in the middle ‘90s, and we’re still short of those military occupations, those specialties. In addition, one could argue that the lack of a stabilizing force in Iraq really contributed to the length of time that we’re there and the difficulties we still encounter in Iraq. Would you be in favor of forming a Joint Stabilization Command?

MULLEN: It’s probably a little too early for me to say this is the solution. I think that we clearly are living in a world where we’re going to have to have that kind of capability, and for the long term, and how much of that is imbedded in what part of our Armed Forces is a question that’s out there.

The discussion about a Joint Stabilization Command … clearly what we’ve learned from this war, from these two wars, is that this is a really critical capability, the lessons are there of things that we’ve got to roll into the future.

We’ve started curriculums out at the Naval Postgraduate School in stabilization kinds of operations. We’re involved much more broadly and globally with [non-governmental organizations] and entities like that.

All of that says to me that we will continue to need to be able to do this, but the exact structure in which we would do it, to say we should have a command that oversees that, I’m just not that far down the road to say that is the answer.

We’ve made significant adjustments in all of the service POMs [program objective memorandums] or budgets with respect to creating cultural skills, language skills, all of which speak to this same kind of skill set that has got to be focused on … in the long run.

Q: In addition to stabilizing, Secretary [of Defense Robert] Gates yesterday talked a lot about this in his speech out in Kansas in terms of soft power, projecting soft power. Would you imagine, even though you’ve just looked at this preliminarily, this Joint Stabilization Command or something like that being envisioned for Africa Command, where you have a combination of military and diplomatic and so-called soft skills?

MULLEN: The construct of Africa Command … is a healthy combination, as we stand it up, of both individuals who are in the military, as well as individuals that come from other agencies. The State Department would be one. I mean there are two deputies in Africa Command. The second, the other deputy, equal deputy, is a career Foreign Service Officer.

I think those are very positive steps. What’s interesting, in addition to the stand-up of Africa Command, which has this kind of focus, Adm. [James] Stavridis [U.S. Southern Command chief] is moving his command in that direction because we don’t expect conflict to break out down in his AOR [area of responsibility], nor do we in Africa.

It’s that engagement piece which is so important, and I applaud what Secretary Gates said yesterday. There are many lessons we’re learning, one of which is that military security is a necessary factor, but it is not sufficient to be able to solve these kinds of problems.

Having the kind of soft power capability of which you speak and of which the Secretary spoke yesterday, I think, is really important, and the depth of it, the capacity that we have, the skill set that we bring for our government, in fact, I believe that in the long run, we need to take a reasonably serious look at how our government is organized — to use a service perspective — trained, organized and equipped, and educated to address the challenges that we see in the world in which we’re living.

Q: During a meeting last week in the tank [the secure room in the Pentagon in which the Joint Chiefs of Staff regularly meet], our understanding is that Secretary Gates mentioned to the Army and to the Marines that they maybe need to spend a little bit more time focused on irregular warfare. The way it was recounted, it was suggested in the course of the meeting that there should be a greater focus on that, with the Air Force and the Navy sort of picking up more of the strategic role in terms of China and some other theaters.

What’s your view of that debate? There are some who say in the ground forces that we need a full-spectrum force, which is seen as a euphemism for sort of clinging to the big sort of heavy missions. Our understanding is that in some recent war games within DoD, the Army has fared poorly by not more aggressively embracing the irregular warfare mission.

How do you see that debate unfolding? You said instead of developing a stabilization command, there might be “in lieu of” mechanisms you could use. Do the Army and the Marine Corps have to become more of the irregular warfare specialists within the U.S. military and serve a more permanent basis?

MULLEN: In the tank?

Q: That was what we were told.

MULLEN: How would you know that?

[Laughter.]

Q: People who talk.

MULLEN: Actually, I think the signature public discussion about this was Secretary Gates’ speech at AUSA [the Association of the U.S. Army annual convention] where he spoke about this issue. From my perspective, first of all, this is a debate, and it’s a healthy debate, and it’s one we ought to have over a period of time.

Secondly, my perspective has been and will continue to be to approach this from a balanced perspective. So I think saying it’s all this way for the ground forces and it’s all this way for the Navy and the Air Force is not, that’s not where I come out at this point in time. I think there’s too much risk associated with that. I think we’ve got to have a balanced approach.

One of the things I talked about in terms of resetting or reconstituting and revitalizing the forces is this discussion of moving beyond counterinsurgency for the ground forces and not back to, but certainly forward into, expanding it to a broader spectrum of capabilities to address the challenges that we have.

And so I think we’ve got to do that, and invest accordingly, and it’s broader, it’s a bigger issue, as I indicated in my opening remarks. It’s a bigger issue than just the kind of warfare. It’s the kind of skills; it’s the kind of equipment; it’s the kind of training.

To look specifically at the Marine Corps, the Marine Corps is our expeditionary fighting force. They’re our “911” force. They’ve been locked down in Iraq now for a significant period of time. Gen. Conway would tell you — I’m not sure at what pay grade — but there are significant number of officers in the Marine Corps who have never been on a ship, have never done amphibious operations, and never fired an artillery round. The Commandant of the Marine Corps is not going to be in a position to say that that’s OK in the long run.

I think that it will be very important for all our services to be more and more expeditionary, not just the Marine Corps, but those core broader-spectrum capabilities are going to be important for all our ground services.

So I think it’s too early to say. I think your comment about the war games, it’s an excellent venue to take input to figure out how we answer this in the long run, but I think it’s got to be a balanced approach.

I don’t think it’s correct to say the Air Force and the Navy should just do high-end stuff. All the services coming out of the QDR [Quadrennial Defense Review] over the last several years have worked to transform themselves to handle what I would argue is a broader spectrum of mission sets, and to very carefully divide them into, “You take this and you take this.” I can’t see it that way at this particular point in time.

Q: But Admiral, are there short-term fixes that we need to do? Because when you’re talking about that group of junior officers who haven’t been to sea in the Marine Corps, that is potentially a big deficit 10 years from now or eight years from now — a gap that you’re going to have trouble going back and making up for.

MULLEN: There’s no question that those gaps will have to be addressed, and we’ve got to do that in the reconstitute/revitalize [effort]. That said, the priority for right now is to make sure we get it right in Iraq and Afghanistan, recognize that deficit, and then figure a way to get to that the quickest way we can.

I mean, we’ve made the decision to grow the force. That’s going to create more flexibility. It won’t happen overnight. It’s going to take a few years to do that. Clearly, one of the questions that’s out there is, [how] we would look to relieve the pressure in terms of operational deployments.

[The forces] are under enormous pressure right now. They’re basically 1:1 [time deployed to “dwell time” back home]. Actually they’re a little less than 1:1 in the Marine Corps, and they’re [on] 15-month deployments, 12 months back, from the Army’s perspective.

We’re looking for ways to relieve that pressure, and to do all of that then feeds the need to, when that pressure is relieved, what do we do with it? What do we do with that relief? Clearly, we’ve got to address those gaps.

Q: Admiral, Gen. Petraeus was brought home recently to run an Army one-star [promotion] board. Could you tell us what the reasoning was behind the decision to bring him back, and are you concerned that at the Army senior levels, there’s been a reluctance to place sufficient emphasis on counterinsurgency as reflected in some of the O-6s who haven’t been promoted to O-7 over the last couple of years who are renowned in the Army as counterinsurgency experts, and a desire on the part of the Army senior leaders to get back to a sort of a business-as-usual, conventional warfare approach?

MULLEN: This is sort of the second question along that same vein … about broadening the spectrum. My view is, it doesn’t mean we go back. We’ve got to move forward. We’ve got to continue to transform ourselves to address the challenges that are out there.

As far as the selection of Gen. Petraeus to be the president of the most recent Army one-star board, I don’t, I was not, I didn’t participate in that decision. That’s really a decision … the Secretary of the Army is the one who signs off on that.

I’m encouraged by it. Actually, to some degree, when you consider the number of senior officers who have now rotated through Afghanistan and Iraq over the last several years, I’d be hard-pressed to believe that they weren’t well-versed in this, in the counterinsurgency part of the warfighting capability and stabilization operations. Certainly they’ll have an impact on what the future of the Army holds.

As far as the specifics, I mean, I’ve been involved in enough selection and screening boards that I have great faith in the process. As far as the specifics of why we pick who we pick and those kinds of things, I really, I really can’t speak to that.

I think what will be important is the output of this board, as it is in every service for every flag selection, flag or general officer selection board, because you’re producing in that group those who will lead the future.

That’s always been the case. It’s a very effective way to set direction for your service, and I speak from someone who has been a service chief and participated in the process. But as far as the exact reasoning for or the selection of Gen. Petraeus to do this, I just wasn’t involved in that and wouldn’t speak to that. That’s a question much better answered by Secretary [of the Army Pete] Geren or [Army Chief of Staff] Gen. {George] Casey.

Q: There are some who say that there needs to be a rebalancing between the Army and the Air Force and the Navy. When you were CNO [chief of naval operations], you gave at the bank generously to make sure that your Army brethren certainly had some more investment dollars and the Air Force has done the same thing, and in part putting the SCN [Navy shipbuilding and conversion] budget as well as the Air Force modernization budget in a bit of a pickle.

How at this point do you go about getting that money? There’s a sense that the war is going to be drawing down, that the level of defense investment cannot be sustained, and after every war, U.S. defense spending has dropped rather sharply.

How do you make sure that you get those long-term resources you need for those very, very big-ticket modernization items that are coming down the pike so that both the Navy as well as the Army reach that front?

MULLEN: And the Air Force.

Q: And the Air Force.

MULLEN: Well, clearly that’s a huge challenge, and I think the chairman and the vice chairman and the service chiefs, we’ve got to make that case to the leadership. Secretary Gates’ comments are — part of his speech yesterday spoke to the peace dividend aspect of it. We have a pretty consistent history where after conflicts we do exactly as you describe: we ratchet down the budget.

And I worry a great deal about us doing that right now because of the world that we’re living in and the long-term challenges that we have. That’s a piece of it.

Secondly, we have — rightfully so — prioritized on the ground forces because they are the forces who bear the brunt of this war. That is not to say that the Air Force and the Navy have not participated in this in support, because clearly both have, and I applaud that, and they have done exceptional work.

We’re also at a time that we are recapitalizing … across the board those things that we bought in the ‘80s. I’ll give you a great example, I think is a great example, which is the challenge that we faced recently with F-15s. We lost an F-15 two or three weeks, maybe about three weeks ago now, and as far as we know, it was just a catastrophic failure.

We haven’t drilled all the way into that yet so we don’t have all the information. But that airplane was built in the ‘80s. That’s a 25-year-old or so jet. I don’t know the exact age of that jet, but the early to mid-’80s, and that’s a long time for a high performance airplane of any service. We’ve got to recapitalize those. I can talk about the same kind of thing for ships.

As I look at the Air Force, the Air Force has been restricted in its ability to get rid of old airplanes, and so Gen. [T. Michael] Moseley [Air Force chief of staff] has the challenge of dealing with old expensive, higher-cost-per-hour airplanes, and not being able to get rid of them and then put that money into future investment.

That’s a different strategy than what the Navy executed, which was to get rid of a bunch of old, a lot of old ships … and then invest in the future. So we have got to be able to make that case.

I’ve said publicly and believe, not counting the supplemental, right now, we’re at about 3.3 percent GDP [defense spending as a percentage of gross domestic product], and I think we need to be up around 4 percent. I worry a lot about the contraction of the budget in the world we’re living in right now, particularly for us as a country as we continue to have these global responsibilities.

We’ve got to look at our appetite clearly and then we’ve got to say — and the military owes this to the civilian leadership — that this is what we need to do that, to execute this strategy, this military, the national security strategy, and make no bones that it’s going to take some, it’s going to take whatever that is to include this recapitalization challenge.

Clearly, I’ve been involved in that, heavily, with respect to the ships. That’s got to happen in all the services to some degree.

The other thing I think we’ve got to continue to do, and it goes back to the quality of people and the families, we’ve got to continue to invest there. And again, coming from a service chief’s perspective, some 60 to 70 percent of my budget was invested in our people. That’s active, reserve, civilian. That’s going to continue to be the case.

People will continue to grow in terms of our investment, and we have to recognize that. All of us have to work hard at spending every single dollar responsibly, effectively and efficiently.

We worked that very hard the last five or six years with respect to the Navy, and all services are working that. At the same time, there are floors that — there’s a [manpower] floor that exists, [below] which we’re just not going to be able to execute the strategy. So it’s a combination of things.

In addition to those, the technologies that we have and are seeking in the future are more expensive, have to be refreshed more often. We have to be mindful of where we are as far as the leading-edge technologies and investments, and making sure we’re ahead and that we stay ahead.

We are unable to procure things in economic order, quantity numbers. Too often we’re at what I call minimum sustaining rates. That makes them cost more.

All those things. Those are some of the realities that are out there right now with respect to this.

Q: But how do you get the body politic away from the “all Iraq, all the time” mindset and a view that is held by some, which is, well, submarines aren’t important, ships aren’t all that important? Even the Army, or some quarters of the Army is making a case that, well, the Air Force really isn’t all that important to what we’re doing on the ground, which I think is somewhat disingenuous.

MULLEN: The way I try to approach this is, I mean, this business is incredibly critical, the whole national security enterprise, and we should not rush. We need to move in measured, very careful steps to make sure whatever decisions we make are supported by both the facts and also the strategy.

So I’m not inclined to … I mean, I’m a long way away from making any kind of comment like that. This combined [force] of all four services has been a great strength of our country for many, many years. I think we just need to be mindful and careful about steps that we take to dramatically affect the future of an individual service, which I think is going to dramatically affect the joint force. We are much more joint than we used to be, and we will continue to be much more joint in the future.

Q: Admiral, is there a sense of how big that force needs to be going forward, and are there tasks that can be civilianized with either staff or contracting in the future?

MULLEN: At least two main thoughts on that. One is, I think, that the Army is at 522,000 [soldiers] today, growing to 547,000, and there are certainly numbers out there which dramatically exceed that.

My position on this is that we need to get to 547,000, and in the time that it’s going to take us to get to 547,000, we can figure out what the number should be beyond that, whether that’s the right number of whether it should grow beyond that.

Gen. Conway feels pretty strongly that 202,000 Marines is the right answer, and he doesn’t see a future that changes that at this particular point in time.

A couple aspects of contractors. We’ve got lots of them on the battlefield. That has been, in my view — this is not the Blackwater piece; I’m just talking broadly — that has been the result of decisions over the last decade, decade and a half. One of the questions I’ve asked as I come in as Chairman is to take a very careful look at is where are we on contractors. As we look at the future and we have certain requirements, how much of it is embedded in the military and how much of it is embedded in our civilian corps and how much of it is embedded in the contractors?

I need an answer to that. My concern is that we’ve chipped away at that over time in certain areas, and we’ve got to, I’ve got to have a comprehensive answer. I do think there’s a place for contractors, and they’ve done incredible work in lots of places in very dangerous spots.

I don’t know what the answer to either one of those will be. It also goes back to the previous question of what is our global strategy and what is our global appetite going to be and what’s it going to take to do that?

Q: Do you have ongoing studies with regard to contractors or is that part of a global —

MULLEN: It’s a question. I’m not sure I’d call it a study. It’s a question I’ve asked my staff to go look at and come back in a comprehensive way to answer. So whether they’ve generated a study or not, I don’t know, but clearly, I want to take a very serious look at this.

Q: But you’ve put a deadline, “I’d like an answer by …”?

MULLEN: I haven’t. I have initiated the question. They’re going to come back to me with sort of an additional cut, and then I’d put a deadline on it to say I need an answer by whenever. But it’s months, not years. It’s something I want to understand here in the first six months or eight months, something like that.

It’s a very serious question and a very complex question, and there will be some hard decisions that need to be made about, “Is this something we want to have reside in the military or in a contractor for the future, as best we can tell?”

Q: Are federal civilians part of that equation then or right now you’re just looking at contractors?

MULLEN: No, I think, I mean the broad question is contractors, but I don’t know how in the long run we wouldn’t answer that question [on federal civilians] as well.

Q: Admiral, in the same vein, there are thousands of sailors and airmen who are filling in for the Army in critical areas as IAs [individual augmentees] and “in lieu of” units. Where do you see that going in the next year? Do you see it increasing, decreasing or status quo?

MULLEN: Probably the best guess at an estimate right now for me would be pretty close to status quo. In the Navy, I was pretty lousy at predicting what it was going to be except to have some expectations it would go up.

The reason I say status quo is, to some degree is because of the surge … the return of those five brigades. But I would not, as best I can tell right now, I wouldn’t see it coming down in the next half year to year. I just don’t know that. The predictions I’ve seen are pretty close to staying where we are right now.

I want to commend both Air Force and the Navy for stepping in. I’ve talked to many, many airmen and sailors over the last couple of years and recently. They’re very proud of what they’re doing. They’ve had a big impact, and in my view, they will take what they’ve learned and come back and infiltrate, inculcate this view of the world to their services, and I think that’s very important.

There are very few places I go where ground commanders, battalion commanders, brigade commanders, general officers, don’t praise what the Air Force and Navy have done in terms of supporting what they’re doing.

The vast majority of airmen and sailors are working in skill sets which are either exactly like or very close to their normal skill sets. There’s a percentage that is not on occasion. That’s not all bad either because they find themselves broadening their skills as well.

Q: With your Navy background, in your initial take-up here and your visits over there, have you seen other places where you think the Navy could plug in on the ground and assist in the effort?

MULLEN: I haven’t. That’s just — there’s nothing that jumps out at me that I can think of right now to be able to give you an additional spot or area or skill set that either the Air Force or the Navy could contribute in.

Q: What about those military training teams [training Iraq forces]? Would they be able to augment the Army on that front?

MULLEN: Well, actually they are. In fact, one of my visits was to Fort Riley, [Kan.], and I spent time with a military training team that was essentially going through training. This was in October, and I think they were due to arrive in Afghanistan in December or January, and it was a mix of Army, of Navy and of airmen specifically.

So that’s going on right now, and those skills clearly are skills that I think you adapt, airmen and sailors adapt pretty quickly to being able to do that.

Q: Admiral, you mentioned earlier that Congress has put restrictions on the Air Force on retiring planes. Part of the reason for that is a certain lack of trust in the acquisition process, I believe. Do you think the Defense Department needs to play a greater role in those decisions?

MULLEN: Well, you mean at the OSD {Office of the Secretary of Defense] level or —

Q: Yes.

MULLEN: I think I am not well versed in the intricacies of why Congress has done this. I’ve seen it. There are a large number of airplanes that are restricted in terms of being able to decommission them. So, again, I’m not deeply involved in that, and yet, and I’ve seen more of it in this job actually than I did my previous job, and I want to understand it more.

In fact, I’ve asked Gen. Moseley to come and walk me through sort of the history why we are where we are. Again, as a service chief, having been through this, it’s extraordinarily challenging to try to buy new forces at the same time you’re paying absolute top dollar for one sortie, and it just goes up over time because of the maintenance requirements just tied to the age, particularly, although not exclusively, just to high end.

I think it’s very important for the leadership … the entirety of the leadership — that’s the military leadership, the civilian leadership, the leadership on [Capitol] Hill — to figure a way through, the best way through, so that we can recapitalize the Air Force.

Q: Do you think Congress overplays its hand in some cases? Certainly as CNO you have difficulties with trying to retire a ship, an aircraft carrier and they wouldn’t let you. Same kind of restrictions here.

MULLEN: You know, I take those kinds of engagements as opportunities, and clearly when this happens, there are very strong views associated with this, and it doesn’t do us any good to sit on the sidelines. We’ve got to engage and understand what those views are, and then make sure we get it right for the future.

More often than not, at least in my experience as a service chief, it was, “How do we get this right for the future because of whatever happened in the past?”

I think it’s very important for us to engage regularly on that and make sure that we understand, that we understand all aspects of the discussion and the debate, and if I can contribute to that as the Chairman, I want to be able to do that.

Q: Admiral, I’d like to frame for you a people-versus-weapons question. In recent years, we’ve heard more and more complaints about personnel costs escalating in the budget and how the Department of Defense, in particular the Bush administration, had been trying to hold down those expenses because they need the money for weapons modernization.

Usually we hear it in regards to, “You can’t afford to do concurrent receipt,” or, “We need to increase Tricare fees on retirees,” but in the last couple of years, it’s applied even to the military pay raise, with an unusual policy statement out of the White House that they oppose Congress providing a modestly larger pay raise for the troops — a sort of unusual position to take in time of war because of its morale implications.

I’m wondering if you could frame how you view the people-versus-weapons debate — because I heard you talk about the importance of keeping personnel costs up — and whether … you can fully fund both of them in a reasonable fashion with a budget that’s less than 4 percent of the gross domestic product?

MULLEN: I think what I meant to say was that it is very important we get the investment for our people correct. My views are informed on this by my time in Washington since the mid-’90s, and since the mid-’90s right through today, administrations, as well as the Hill have dramatically improved the overall compensation package for our men and women who serve, across the board, including the medical package, the long-term medical package.

I believe right now that health care in the military is the gold standard in the country. I would specifically talk about the pay raise issue if you look at that beyond a given year or two, but if you back up to five or six years ago, to close the gap between what were the comparable salaries from the civilian sector to the military sector. This administration, I will give a great deal of credit [to], for closing that gap.

I worry a little bit about getting focused on one individual year. I’d prefer to wait to see a trend. I do think, again, we’ve got to get this right and keep it right, to retain this exceptionally professional, this exceptionally talented military that we have, this professional military that we have, which far exceeds anything I ever saw as a junior officer in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s.

That said, we’ve got to hit a balance here in terms of what is it going to take to make sure that investment is right? I indicated as a service chief, 60 to 70 percent of my investment was for people. Out of the other 30 or 40, I’ve got to operate and I’ve got to buy the future, and so it is, I think, the task of responsible leadership to continuously work to get this right.

It can be a very, very emotional discussion. I’d like it to be based on the facts, based on exactly what we think we need with respect to our people. Not unlike the equipment that we’re buying, the people that we have now are much more expensive. There’s a much higher investment than there used to be, and I think we’re going to have to continue to do that. But I don’t think the sky is the limit, and I think we’ve got to have the balance between the three and also recognize that the budget is not going to keep going up forever.

The worry about the budget coming down dramatically, for me, is that it will come right out of procurement. That’s the only account in which there’s significant flexibility, and then that gets to this discussion about, “We’ve got to fight today and continue to fight well, but we also have to prepare for tomorrow,” and that’s part of all of our responsibility.

So it’s much more complex than a given pay raise in a given year. There are businesses going out of business because they can’t afford their people anymore. We can’t do that. We can never get to that because our business is national security.

Q: Admiral, if we could go back to the discussion of the Marine Corps losing its expeditionary nature. Are they off track, and if they’re off track, what does that mean to the nation in terms of being able to respond to things like [the humanitarian relief mission in] Bangladesh?

MULLEN: They are not off track. In fact, specifically with respect to Bangladesh, the lead senior officer on the ground there is a one-star Marine coming out of Okinawa, who is out there. So they’re not off track. They’re prioritized right now for the fight that we’re in, and they’ve done marvelous work, specifically focused, not exclusively, but specifically, for the main, focused on the western part of Iraq in Anbar [Province], and look what’s happened there. I give the Marine Corps an enormous amount of credit with respect to that.

But there’s a future piece here that I think we’ve all got to be mindful of, and so the commandant’s concerns about not training against a broader spectrum of requirements, about having young officers who haven’t done amphibious operations, the Marine Corps, I believe, the Marine Corps in the future is going to be, continue to be this expeditionary 911 force, and so we’ve got to look to that as much as we can.

The priority right now clearly is in Iraq and in Afghanistan. [But] as we look to our troop rotations, how can we start to get back to that kind of thing, and at the same time, still [have] the ability — it’s not as robust as it was — to respond to something like we are in Bangladesh where we’ve got amphibious ships there. We’re providing a significant amount of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief as we are able to do, and a big part of that is the Marine Corps.

Q: Bangladesh might be a bad example because there’s no combat element to Bangladesh. What about, say, Pakistan, if that were to devolve suddenly and you would have to send an actual combat force in?

MULLEN: Clearly, our, and I don’t want to prognosticate about Pakistan per se, but clearly — let me kind of, let me broaden it a little bit: If we had to send ground forces somewhere else, we’re really pushed right now.

I mean that’s been stated. We know that. Could it be done in very dire circumstances? Certainly it could. There are ways and there are authorities the President has that he can execute in order to do this. But right now, because of the rotation that we’ve been under and because the ground forces are basically on less than 1:1 rotations, you know, being able to respond somewhere else is a real challenge.

But you also got to think about the probabilities of that happening, and right now in many parts of the world those probabilities are pretty low. That doesn’t mean we can predict the future. We can’t. We’ve shown that we haven’t done exceptionally well in terms of predicting where we’d be fighting, and we’re mindful of that.

At the same time, there’s plenty of reserve in the Air Force and the Navy to be able to respond to those kinds of things that we think we need to respond to. But having a large ground force go somewhere else would certainly be a huge challenge for us right now.

Q: Does what you just described take us back to the sort of “win-hold-win” concept of the mid-’90s that, you know, we’ll lean on the Air Force and the Navy to drop bombs on whoever we might have to deal with somewhere else while we take care of our present obligations?

MULLEN: Well, I think not. I would not want to specifically categorize it that way. I think it probably, it would depend on what we had to do. Whether we’d involve ground forces or not would be one question depending on the contingency, and in which case that would apply.

But it goes back to, clearly, that the ground forces are very focused right now where we want them to be focused. They’ve been pressed very hard, borne the brunt of this. We have to make sure that we can respond to other contingencies — which we can — and do it in a way that I think still really makes a difference. I wouldn’t want anybody to misread the fact that our ground forces are occupied [to mean] that we couldn’t respond somewhere else.

Q: But would you agree that we’re assuming a certain degree of strategic risk at the present time?

MULLEN: We certainly have — this is the global rebalancing piece. We have assumed some strategic risk with respect to that, and I think we’ve done that consciously, we understand that, and we, I as the Chairman, am responsible to both understand that all the time, work it all the time, and make sure I apprise my bosses of what I think that risk is.

Q: Admiral, you said a few times that we’ve got to get it right. We’ve got to figure it out. Who needs to get it right? Who needs to figure it out? The military leadership? The tactical units? The political policy?

MULLEN: I think it’s that we are all responsible to work this hard and make sure that we can continue to do what we need to do in Iraq and Afghanistan. Make sure that we are, that we don’t stress our force to the breaking point for individuals and their families, and that we, as we are able, look to rebalance the force disposition, if you will, its training, its dwell time in a way that gets at some of those risks.

It’s a very delicate balance right now because of where we are and because of what we’re committed to.

Q: Along those lines, Admiral, in terms of available ground forces, the stress on families and all, you met with soldiers recently — I think you got an earful on optempo [operational tempo] becoming a real “stay-or-go” issue. You said earlier that we’re looking at some ways to relieve pressure on optempo. Other than growing the Army to 547,000 and getting past the surge, is there anything more immediate, any modeling being done to bring some relief to the optempo, to get back to a 12-month tour for the Army or any other —

MULLEN: Gen. Casey and Gen. Conway are looking at ways to deploy more of their services. There’s been a certain percentage of each service which has deployed, and they’re looking for ways to increase those numbers, but I don’t know what those numbers would be nor do I know what their targets are, as one example.

Clearly, coming down to 15 brigades in Iraq will have an impact on that over the long run. But … there are just a couple of variables here in terms of creating the ability. You know Secretary Gates, I think, was very wise in putting a line in the sand and saying it’s 15 [months deployed], 12 [months at home for soldiers], and we’re moving back to five to one [five years at home for each year deployed] for the Guard and Reserve as quickly as we can because.

That created a predictability and a stability factor that was very positive. Gen. Casey has said … the Army is out of balance, and he needs to move … as rapidly as he can, from 15-month deployments and 12 months back to 12 and 12, to 15 months back and 12-month deployments, and to really get to 2:1 — a one-year deployment and two years back.

Gen. Conway feels the same way. We all feel that we’ve got to move in that direction. That said, we’ve got operational obligations which we’re going to have to fill, and that’s the balance piece, and that’s the constant tension that we all see and that we deal with on a regular basis to make sure, to make sure we do get it right for the future.

And to get it right, it’s a combination of, again, winning today, fighting and winning the wars today and also getting ready, make sure we’re ready for tomorrow.

Q: Do you know how many troops you can have in Iraq and Afghanistan and have that rotation base that you’re talking about, the 2:1 for active forces?

MULLEN: I’d have to do the math. People have done the math. It’s somewhere —

Q: Somewhere about half of what you’ve got there now.

MULLEN: I’d be guessing, and I really don’t want to do that, but you got to, obviously you’ve got to get the number of brigades down to a point where you can create a 2:1 rotation, and it’s a combination of both the number of brigades that are deploying [coming] down, combined with building new brigades in the future tied to the end-strength growth.

Q: Would there be some advantage to dividing the fight, the way the Commandant suggested, putting the Marines in Afghanistan and allowing the Army to just take the Iraq mission in total?

MULLEN: We’ve looked at that, and on balance right now my recommendation to the Secretary of Defense was to not do that at this particular point in time, and I’ve shared that with Gen. Conway.

Q: Because?

MULLEN: Well, things are better in Iraq, but I haven’t reached a point where I’m, you know, that they are so much better or we’ve sustained that over a period of time long enough to say that essentially the Marine Corps … [should] pull out of Iraq and essentially engage in Afghanistan, in other words, go there to the level of about 15,000, which also puts them in a position to over a period of about 12 to 18 months get into a 2:1 rotation, with certain assumptions.

The priority right now is to be able to sustain that security in Iraq. We’ve looked at — there are certainly a number of ways to do that in the future. But back to the question earlier — how do we sustain this in the long run? At least for the foreseeable future, it includes the Marine Corps in Iraq.

Q: What about using the Guard more? Rather than going directly to the 1:5 ratio for the Guard, saying, OK, we’re at war, we’re going to have to lean on them more so that we don’t break the active force?

MULLEN: I want to give the Guard and the Reserve just as much praise as possible for what they’ve done since 9/11. I think one of the long-term outputs of this war, these wars, is a dramatic change in what the Guard and Reserve both mean, how we train them, what they do, expectations.

Those things are happening as we speak, and exactly what that looks like in the long run, I’m not sure. I indicated that one year of deployment and five years back is what the target is. We’re somewhere between, notionally, between one to two and three right now. We’re moving it in that direction.

We’re not at a point where I think we need to, and nobody is arguing for, in fact, increasing that rotation. I’m very thankful of the support that our employers have given to these Guard and Reserve individuals over the period of the last several years because that’s a part of America. That’s one way that America supports the war.

[But] I don’t find us at a point where we really need to [increase Guard and Reserve rotations]. Is there reserve there to do that? We could, yes, but [there are] challenges that we were having in getting the Guard and Reserve ready, the Guard in particular, ready, prior to Secretary Gates saying two things. One is, here are the limits you can predict, and the other is, we’re going to do this by unit, not by individual.

[That] really settled down an incredible amount of turmoil in the Guard about what they were going to be able to do with their lives. That predictability is really important. It doesn’t mean, from my perspective, that if we really got to the point where we need them, that we couldn’t do it, but we’re trying not to right now.

It all gets back to this balance, the very careful balance that we’ve got right now, particularly with our ground forces.

Q: You’ve got a QDR coming up in the next two years. I assume that the wheels have at least begun to turn toward what that would be. Where do you see this next QDR going?

MULLEN: I think your description is probably accurate, the wheels have started to turn. We haven’t really framed the discussion against what the future looks like, although I think we, from my perspective, we actually made a pretty dramatic move in the last QDR. I thought that was focused about right, and that certainly, picking up from there would be a great spot to say, “Is that the right vector or should we dramatically change that?”

As the world continues to change, as China continues to emerge, as Iran, as we figure out, you know, what, where Iran goes and the challenges that it poses in that part of the world — I’m again cautiously optimistic with the Six Party Talks with North Korea and getting them to a point where they’re denuclearized is very important, and watching what happens with respect to that.

But then at the top of the list is still this long war, this war against radical jihadists, extremists, the potential proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and quite frankly a huge concern that those two come together. We’ve got to have the forces, the policies, the forces, the investments.

We haven’t talked about the growth of the “soft forces,” and I think that’s as important as any end-strength growth that we have, and they’ve performed at a level that has just been matchless as well.

So the QDR, I think will take clearly what’s happened in the last three to four years, update itself, and focus accordingly. I think the last QDR, to use a Navy phrase, put the rudder over in the right direction. How do we steady up, and where do we focus, I think, is still a question that’s out there.

But again back to your point, the wheels are starting to turn. There are individuals tasked with looking at this and then how will we address it for the future.

Q: Admiral, as conflicts around the world continue to become more, as you look at a more protracted conflict, do you think private contractors should carry weapons for the U.S. government, and who should have jurisdiction over them? And do you see their presence on today’s battlefield in light of recent Blackwater problems staying the same, diminishing, increasing? What’s your view on that?

MULLEN: I think there’s going to be a place for them. I’m actually reasonably, I’m assured that Ambassador [Ryan Crocker] and Gen. Petraeus are working out the right construct specifically for Blackwater in the future, and I’ve looked at it carefully enough to believe that this is doable. This is something they can coordinate.

My view is it’s less an issue of control than it is coordinating to make sure we know who’s out on the battlefield and what’s going on there, and I think that we do that, I think it’s an important step to take.

As far as how much, whether it’s more or less, I’m just not there. I’m comfortable —

Q: You think they’re there to stay?

MULLEN: I think at least for the foreseeable future, they’re going to be there. Clearly, we don’t have the forces to provide that kind of security right now, which is one of the reasons Blackwater is there. Just, you know, a reminder — Blackwater is providing security for the State Department, not for, they’re not providing security for military VIPs or individuals.

Q: So do you think the State Department should have jurisdiction over them legally?

MULLEN: I’m comfortable that there are legal, that the legal structure can address whatever the legal requirements would be without saying who should have what. I think, as is always the case with an individual, with an incident or a set of circumstances, we need to apply whatever the legal rules are as best we can to that incident.

So it’s not, to me it’s not an absolute in every single situation. I’m comfortable that should the requirement be there for the military to have jurisdiction, that the legal framework, the laws are there to do that.

Q: Over the long-term, should private contractors be carrying weapons on behalf of the United States government? And I think that’s really the fundamental question. Or should that be a military function?

MULLEN: No, I think clearly on the battlefield that we’re in right now, I don’t see how they could provide security without weapons. But they’ve got to —

Q: Well, that’s the — should you have private security or should that really be a military function?

MULLEN: I haven’t reached a conclusion on that. We are where we are right now. I’ve got to deal with that. Some of that would come out of this discussion earlier that I talked about, what are we going to contract out and what skills are we going to have, and I don’t have an answer for that right now.

Q: Admiral, you recently said that if members of the military have grave concerns about a policy or a strategy, they can vote or protest with their feet and opt to leave, to not come back.

I’m curious, does that extend in your mind to general officers, even especially in situations where the country may be moving toward a war, another war of choice? Does that extend to the senior-most levels of the military including the service chiefs, including the vice chairman, and even the chairman? Should they, if they have grave concerns, step aside?

MULLEN: Absolutely. Yeah. I believe in civilian control of the military. That’s foundational for our country. And we in the military must be apolitical and neutral and we must carry out the orders of our civilian leadership. If we, at any level, but I’ll focus particularly at a senior level, if we cannot live with that policy, then the proper action to take is to vote with our feet, and that is our statement for the record. And I believe very strongly in that.

Q: Do you think they have the right to speak out after they take off their uniform, given that they’re subject to recall?

MULLEN: It’s a country that is based on freedom of speech, so clearly any individual certainly has that right. And yet, I do, I do worry sometimes about the … I try to keep a reference point, the farmer in Peoria seeing individuals who are opining on one subject or another and not really, not exceptionally clear who this officer is or whether they’re on active duty or they’re retired, and the confusion that they’re speaking for the military can be one that I don’t think is very helpful. But clearly, they have the right to speak, absolutely.

Q: But in your mind, perhaps not appropriate?

MULLEN: Well, I’ll let my previous statement speak to it.

Q: Admiral, between yourself, Adm. Fallon at CentCom and Adm. [Eric] Olson at SOCOM [U.S. Special Operations Command], the Navy now holds arguably the three most important senior four star positions in the GWOT [global war on terrorism], long war, whatever you want to call it, which is obviously being fought primarily at the moment in land theaters. What do you think accounts for this? Is the Navy growing its senior leaders differently than the other services or is there some other reason for this phenomenon?

MULLEN: I’m less inclined to say we’re growing them differently than I am — these things go in cycles. I know all the individuals very well. They’re exceptional individuals. They have a wealth of experience, and their timing was such that bringing that experience and their views … to bear was very important.

I applaud them for their abilities and for what they do. But there are plenty of individuals in other services who also bring an extraordinary capability at the senior leadership level that I have dealt with. We are focused on Central Command and on this war, and, you know, David Petraeus would be one, clearly.

But I just spent some time in Korea with Gen. B.B. Bell, who I also knew as a contemporary. I knew him when we served together in Europe. Extraordinary officer who’s done incredible work out in the, on the Korean Peninsula in that theater and that part of that world is very important.

I’ve spent time recently with Gen. “Chili” Chilton who has taken over Strategic Command. He’s an exceptional individual. Gen. Howie Chandler in the Air Force just went out to take over all the Air Forces in the Pacific. Gen. Gene Renuart who has taken over NorthCom [U.S. Northern Command]. There are a lot of capable individuals in lots of theaters upon whom we depend, so I’m less inclined to hang it on one characteristic of one service. [It goes] back to the experience level, the joint world we’re living in, and I really think that that has a lot more to do with it than anything else at this point.

I talk about Adm. Fallon’s experience. Adm. Olson is, I think most people know, is a SEAL, grew up in special [operations] forces, has been in that business his whole life, and again brings a wealth of experience, and I really think he was the right guy at the right time.

Q: But we wouldn’t want to take that answer to mean that you don’t think Navy officers are superior in every way.

MULLEN: No, you wouldn’t want me to say that.

[Laughter.]

MULLEN: And I didn’t say that.

[Laughter.]

MULLEN: For the record.

Q: Admiral, you mentioned earlier the new strategy for the Middle East. Could you get into a little more detail about what do you hope to get out of that? I’m also curious, the existing strategy, were there parts of that, and what parts, that you judged as maybe outdated or not working well?

MULLEN: Let me amend, because I actually left one service out, and I never want to do that, because [Marine Corps Gen.] Jim Mattis just took over down at Joint Forces Command, and I know him well, and another truly exceptional individual. So again, I don’t think the Navy has got the corner on this market at all.

What I am trying to bring to this discussion with respect to the strategy about the Middle East is that it’s broader than just Iraq and Afghanistan. What really got my attention was the emergence of Iran during the Israeli-Lebanon war in summer ‘06. In terms of their influence there … not that I didn’t know about it, but it really focused me on what they were doing, and clearly, there’s been great focus on Iran for a significant period.

If I look at Iran on one side and look at Lebanon or look at Syria or look at Israel or look at the Palestinian issues on the other, it covers the entire Middle East. And so the question I’ve asked is, “Do we have, can we develop a comprehensive military strategy across the full spectrum of military capabilities? And in doing that, can we, in having that strategy, can we contribute to stabilizing that part of the world in ways that we’re not doing right now?” We’ve got to focus on Iraq and Afghanistan, but I think we’ve also got to focus on the greater Middle East.

Stability or instability in that part of the world directly affects our national interests. Has for a long time, will for a long time. So how do we create that, with as much military capability as we have inside a military strategy, and then how does that connect to our overall strategy for that part of the world — the soft power piece of it, the diplomacy piece of it, the financial piece of it?

At a very high level, stability in that part of the world for me gets to a point where actually parents can raise their kids and their standard of living improves and they have a future. How do you impact on that from the military standpoint? That’s where I focus. Clearly, that’s my charge and that’s why I’ve asked that question.

Q: Is military conflict with Iran unavoidable? We just got back from a trip to the region and there’s a sense [in the Arabian Gulf region] that it’s unavoidable, and since it’s unavoidable, we might as well get it over sooner rather than later.

MULLEN: Well, again, the future is very hard to predict. Certainly there are worrisome, worrisome aspects of this right now, but I think that it is unavoidable [sic] and we’ve got to work hard, and I’ve talked about this before, work hard in the diplomatic world, work hard in —there have been significant financial sanctions put out there and keep working those.

Backing that up, you know, a very important piece is having the military strength, which is the deter-and-dissuade piece, and then clearly having the military capability both to deter and dissuade and also act if we need to is a very important part of this overall equation.

Q: And you said it is avoidable?

MULLEN: I don’t want to predict that it’s unavoidable, but I think it is. It is not, it is not —

Q: You think it is unavoidable?

MULLEN: It is not a certain outcome at this point. I just don’t see that. And I would hope that, you know, that wisdom prevails in that regard, not just on the part of the — that wisdom would be well informed by the international community.

This isn’t about the United States. It’s the international community. You just came from the area so I’m sure you heard those concerns expressed.

Q: I’m sorry, Admiral. Are you saying that military conflict is unavoidable with Iran?

MULLEN: I think it can be, yeah.

Q: Avoidable or unavoidable? I just want to make sure —

MULLEN: I’m sorry.

Q: That’s what I was going to ask you — yeah, it’s avoidable?

MULLEN: It is avoidable.

Q: OK.

MULLEN: It is. I appreciate that.

Q: You just changed the headline.

[Laughter.]

MULLEN: Yeah. I mean, the headline would not have matched up with my other comments, I would hope.

Q: That’s why we kept asking.

MULLEN: So I think it is avoidable, yes. It is a great concern, certainly.

Q: Admiral, can I circle back for a moment and just ask a quick follow-up about the first issue we discussed, which is the surge. Clearly, from a military perspective, it has worked, it is working; all statistical indicators show violence is down. You mentioned the growing capabilities of the Iraqi police and political reconciliation on a local level. But there continues to be a steady stream of pessimism about the prospects for political reconciliation at the national level, both among U.S. analysts and even among the Iraqi leaders themselves not too long ago.

What are your views on the prospects for reconciliation at the national level in a way that will truly unify and stabilize that nation? And second, would you say that the window of opportunity that has been created by the surge is the Iraqi leaders’ last best chance to seize the moment and get it together, given growing opposition to the war here at home?

MULLEN: I think the Iraqi leaders need to seize the moment, and that this window of opportunity — and I’ve had this discussion actually with the leadership there —is finite and that they need to take advantage of it.

The local political reconciliation is not exclusively local. There have actually been some engagements from the provinces to Baghdad, to the central government, and I think that’s an important construct as well. That said, all of us are frustrated with the pace of political reconciliation at the central senior level, and we have stated that in as many ways as we possibly can and it continues to be a concern.

There is some progress in the passing of laws to support what needs to happen in creating the kind of laws that allow that country to operate as a sovereign nation by itself in the future.

A pension law tied to those who served in the military is an example. There are some, last year, there were some 70 to 80 laws that were actually passed. The big ones, the hydrocarbon law, the de-Baathification, the provincial elections piece, those are the ones that oftentimes get great focus. They’re very important, and I know that, I know that Ambassador Crocker and others are working this very, very hard with the senior leaders there.

But in the end, it’s going to be up to the senior political leadership in Iraq to take advantage of this window of opportunity, and we’re all frustrated by the fact that that has not occurred to the degree that we would like it to occur.

Q: Is there anything more the United States can do at this point?

MULLEN: Well, I think, there is an awful lot of effort, [we’re] continuing to work, that whole issue very, very hard, and I think we need to continue to do that. There isn’t an easy answer out there. We’d have grabbed it.

And there are there are some signs of progress, but it’s not, to me it’s not the kind of progress ... I mean, this is hard stuff. We, as a country, there needs to be a certain amount of patience —that’s tough, I understand that —tied to this evolution. In addition, there’s a really critical piece here tied to the three-legged stool, which is the economic piece. Actually, you know, oil revenues — despite the fact that there’s not a hydrocarbon law — oil revenues are flowing and have been for some time.

There are businesses which are standing up. There are jobs which are being created. There’s a tremendous amount of effort going on with respect to economics as well. We’ll see in the near future, one of the tasks of the central government is to pass a budget for this year, and I’m very hopeful that they’ll do that in the very near future.

And it’s not an inconsiderable amount of money [that is required] in order to make the country run. So there are steps, but there are still considerable challenges out there.

Q: Last question. “Don’t ask, don’t tell” is 14 years old, I think, this month. Is it still a viable policy? And is it viable for the long term?

MULLEN: Don’t ask, don’t tell is the policy. It is the law and it’s what we carry out. In my testimony when I was confirmed for this job, I was asked about this, and to me, if the American people want to change this policy and change this law, bringing it up through that body and changing that policy and changing the law is the right answer.

I certainly, as a member, a senior member of the military, would participate in that discussion, but right now it is the policy. It’s the law. It’s what we’re carrying out, and if it’s going to change, it’s got to, my view is it’s got to change through the Congress and the government.

Q: But at this stage, would you favor a change or would you favor a status quo?

MULLEN: If it is going to change, it must come up that way through, and until that happens, I’m just in the “execute the current policy” mode.

Q: Well, I thank you. I think we all thank you for your time.

MULLEN: Sure. Thank you.