Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced today that Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Peter Pace, the highest-ranking U.S. military official, is being replaced by Navy Adm. Mike Mullen.

Pace is the first Joint Chiefs Chairman not to be renominated for a second term since the military was centralized under the joint chiefs position 21 years ago. The selection of Mullen also marks the first time in 21 years that both the head of the Joint Chiefs and the CentCom Commander, Adm. William Fallon, have been Navy officers.

Some insight on Mullen can be gained from a speech he gave to sailors in Pearl Harbor in Feb. 2007:

In his opening remarks, Mullen, a Vietnam War veteran, told Pearl Harbor sailors: “I honestly believe this is the most dangerous time in my life.

“The enemy now is basically evil and fundamentally hates everything we are — the democratic principles for which we stand … This war is going to go on for a long time. It’s a generational war.”

From a Feb. 2006 interview with Mullen:

You use the term ‘Long War’, and it’s important to understand that and really grab this issue because it is going to be around for a significant amount of time. I call it generational. That said, there are still traditional capabilities that are very much required.

When Fallon was appointed in January to lead CentCom, analysts noted the choice of a Navy officer reflected “a greater emphasis on countering Iranian power, a mission that relies heavily on naval forces and combat airpower to project American influence in the Persian Gulf.” In announcing the nomination of Mullen this afternoon, CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr said that Mullen “watches Iran closely.”

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UPDATE: Mullen has indicated he is against a permanent presence in Iraq. “I’ve tried to couch the future discussion, and I’ve looked at it over many months now, is what are we going to do after Iraq? What are we going to do after Afghanistan? And I truly believe we will bring those forces home. I’m not standing here today to predict exactly when that will occur.”

UPDATE II: Cernig has much more:

It seems plain to me that Mullen is being brought forward, in part, to clean house for Gates and consolidate his position at Defense by sweeping out all the old Rumsfield hangovers. That won’t please Cheney, who was always the closest to Rummie in White house circles as the two of them headed the neocon cabal.

UPDATE III: A strong statement out from Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT): Read more

Newly-disclosed intelligence reports state that Bush’s escalation is negatively impacting the situation in Iraq and is unlikely to change the level of violence on the ground.

In yesterday’s “war czar” confirmation hearing for Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) revealed the latest “secret intelligence conclusions,” presented by top U.S. intelligence officials during a closed-door session with the Armed Services Committee last month. The conclusions largely tracked the findings of the last National Intelligence Estimate, which found Iraq to be in a state worse than civil war.

Bayh disclosed that in the closed-door hearing, the intelligence officials emphasized that a sustained U.S. presence will not aid political reconciliation nor quell sectarian violence in the near future:

Their overall consensus was that the trend in Iraq is negative. … Their assessment was that the prospect for political steps in Iraq toward meaningful reconciliation among the different parties, that those steps toward reconciliation — the political steps — would be marginal at best through the end of this calendar year. … We were also told that the state of the insurgency — the level of violence and that sort of thing — was in all likelihood going to be about where it is today a year from now.

Watch it:

Bayh quoted “the top CIA expert on radical Islam,” who told him recently that the U.S. presence in Iraq is generating more terrorists:

[I]n his opinion, our presence in Iraq is creating more members of Al Qaida than we are killing in Iraq.

That assessment debunks Bush’s contention that we must stay in Iraq in order to defeat al Qaeda. Lute agreed with all of the intelligence conclusions, stating that “very little progress” has been shown thus far. Explaining that there is no military solution in Iraq, Lute said “we’re not likely to see much difference in the security situation” if political and economic steps are not taken.

Transcript: Read more

Many members of Congress have rallied behind a September deadline to reassess President Bush’s Iraq strategy, saying they will rely on a report from Gen. David Petraeus to determine whether escalation has been effective.

But despite numerous indicators that Bush’s strategy is failing, ABC News reported recently that Petraeus wants the “surge” to “continue until at least December,” and expects “to report enough progress by September to justify the extension.”

In an interview this week with ThinkProgress, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) became the first member of Congress to call for an independent analysis on the state of the war in September, in addition to Petraeus’ report. Whitehouse charged that Petraeus has an inherent “conflicting loyalty” between “the desire to please the president” and to report the unvarnished truth about Bush’s strategy.

“[H]ow General Petraeus chooses to balance those conflicting prerogatives is up to him and his conscience and I’m hoping and expecting that he’ll come back and speak very candidly to us,” Whitehouse said. But noting President Reagan’s maxim “trust but verify,” he added, “I don’t think it’s necessarily to distrust Petraeus to want to verify.”

Watch it:

Center for American Progress senior fellow Lawrence Korb, a former senior Reagan Pentagon official, called for such an independent assessment last month, writing that Petraeus “is not a reliable source for an unbiased assessment.” The group Third Way has a similar proposal. This past Sunday, Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), a 37-year Marine Corps veteran, acknowledged that he has “lost a lot of confidence in many of the military leaders” because “they say what the White house wants them to say.”

Transcript: Read more