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Stories tagged with “Michael Mullen”

NEWS FLASH

Mullen: ‘I Support The President’s Decision’ On Afghanistan, ‘As Do Gens. Mattis & Petraeus’ | The right has been attacking President Obama’s decision to withdraw 33,000 troops from Afghanistan, claiming that he ignored Gen. David Petraeus’s advice. “It has been widely known that General Petraeus objected to this proposal,” Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said on Fox News last night. However, this morning in testimony to the House Armed Services Committee, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen said that Petraeus does support Obama’s decision. “I support the President’s decision, as do Generals Mattis and Petraeus,” Mullen said.

Security

Admiral Mullen: New START Is ‘Absolutely Critical,’ Calls For A Vote In Lame Duck

By Max Bergmann on Nov 21, 2010 at 12:15 pm

On ABC’s This Week, Admiral Michael Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, aggressively urged the Senate to ratify the New START treaty, which Senate Republicans are threatening to obstruct. Mullen stressed the urgency of getting the treaty ratified, as US inspectors haven’t been on the ground monitoring Russian nuclear weapons for almost a year now.

MULLEN: This is a national security issue… From a national security perspective this is absolutely critical.

AMANPOUR: …Is the Senate playing politics with American national security?

MULLEN: You would have to ask the Senate … What I think is – there is a sense of urgency with respect to ratifying this treaty that needs to be recognized. Historically this has been bipartisan. This is a national security issue of great significance and the sooner we get it don the better.

AMANPOUR: In a lame duck session?

MULLEN: As soon as possible.
AMANPOUR: In In a lame duck session?

MULLEN: The potential is there for lame duck.

AMANPOUR: And you would want that?

MULLEN: That’s the soonest possible time, absolutely.

Watch it:

Republican Senators, led by Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), are deliberately bucking the military leadership of the United States and, according to editorial boards across the country, are playing politics with US national security. The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank, wrote this weekend:

Suppose that during the previous administration, the Democrats had opposed President George W. Bush’s efforts to protect airplanes from would-be bombers and had blocked his strategy to keep nuclear weapons out of terrorists’ hands… Republicans would no doubt be running ads juxtaposing Democrats with Osama bin Laden, or alleging, as they did then, that Democrats are giving “comfort to America’s enemies.” Yet right now, Republicans are providing the comfort… they are blocking a Senate vote on a treaty with Russia that is critical to securing loose nukes and keeping Iran from gaining the bomb… Republicans seem to have entered a post-post-9/11 era, in which national security is no longer a higher priority than their interest in undermining President Obama.

LGBT

Mullen Warns Inaction On Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Would Leave Repeal To The Courts

By Igor Volsky on Nov 21, 2010 at 10:50 am

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen reiterated his “concern” over Marine Commandant Gen. James Amos’ widely publicized comments about the potential “risk” of repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, telling ABC’s This Week that “what concerned me about his most recent comments, it came at a time where we actually had the draft report in hand, and we had all agreed that we would speak to this privately until we completed the report and made our recommendations up the chain.”

Mullen refused to characterize the Pentagon’s Working Group report — which has allegedly found that 70% of servicemembers would not oppose lifting the ban — until it is released and repeated his “personal” belief that the policy undermines the “integrity” of the “institution.” He stopped short of calling on the Senate to pass repeal in the lame duck session, but echoed Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ comments about the danger of leaving this policy to the courts:

AMANPOUR: And if it does not get voted on in the lame duck session, is there any chance that it will come up in any reasonable time period afterwards?

MULLEN: Well, it — I mean it’s very hard to predict what’s going to happen…from a legislative perspective. The other piece that is out there that is very real is the courts are very active on this, and my concern is that at some point in time the courts could change this law and in that not give us the right amount of time to implement it. I think it’s much better done if it’s going to get done, it’s much better done through legislature than it is out of the courts.

Watch it:

Earlier this month, Gates urged the Senate to take-up repeal in the lame-duck session, saying, “The question is whether it is done by legislation that allows us to do it in a thoughtful and careful way, or whether it is struck down by the courts. Because recent court decisions are certainly pointing in that direction,” he explained.

Indeed, in October, a federal district court issued an injunction against the implementation of the policy. The Pentagon did not enforce the ban for eight days, until the Obama administration appealed the district court’s decision to Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. That court issued a stay of the injunction.

Related Posts

LGBT

Mullen ‘Confident’ That DADT-Supporting Marine Commandant Could Implement Repeal ‘Better Than Anybody Else’

By Igor Volsky on Nov 21, 2010 at 9:52 am

This morning, during an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen responded to Marine Commandant Gen. James Amos’ concerns about repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, saying he was confident Amos would be able to effectively implement repeal once Congress lifts the ban:

MULLEN: I don’t think there is any question he can. In fact, I’ve spoken to him as recently as last week and he recounted a town hall that he had on the east coast recently and he was very clear and very public to his Marines and he basically said that if this law changes we are going to implement it and we are going to implement it better than anybody else. So I have great confidence in him that if it gets to the change in the law, that the Marine Corps will implement it as he’s described.

Watch it:

Mullen also expressed confidence in the Pentagon’s study of the policy, rebutting Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) recent criticism that the Working Group only studied how the policy should be repealed and failed to asses if should be overturned in the first place. “Very clearly, this was a study that was initiated to look at if and when the law changes, how we’re going to implement it,” he argued. “Key is the leadership that it’s going to take to implement it when the law changes, specifically, and to understand as clearly as we could, the issues that surface from those it would affect the most, our men and women and their families.”

Amos said earlier this month that he was concerned about a possible loss of unit cohesion and combat readiness if the ban is overturned, but has previously stressed that the Pentagon’s review of the policy would inform the military about how best to implement a repeal and allow the Marine Corps to change the policy “smartly.”

In fact, during his confirmation hearings in September, Amos countered McCain’s argument that the Pentagon’s study won’t tell military leaders if repeal would undermine military effectiveness, insisting that “at the end of the day, when all of this information comes to whoever is the 35th Commandant of the Marine Corps in December….will be able to give his best military advise on that.” “If this policy is changed. The last thing you’re going to see your Marine Corps do is try to step in and push it aside. That will simply not be the case,” Amos added. “There will be issues, we’re going to work through them.”

Politics

Mullen finds ‘little resistance’ among troops to repealing DADT.

By Amanda Terkel on Feb 17, 2010 at 10:56 am

Adm. Mike Mullen While opponents of allowing gay men and women to serve openly in the military often talk about the effect that it will have on troop morale and cohesion, McClatchy reports that at a recent forum with Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen in Jordan, there was “little resistance” to repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell from the servicemembers:

As it turned out, none of the two dozen or so men or women who met with Mullen at Marine House in the Jordanian capital Tuesday had any questions on the 17-year-old policy that bars gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military — or Mullen’s public advocacy of its repeal.

Air Force Chief Master Sgt. Darryl E. Robinson, who’s the operations coordinator for defense attache’s office at the U.S. Embassy here, explained why after the session. “The U.S. military was always at the forefront of social change,” he said. “We didn’t wait for laws to change.”

Mullen later said that since his Capitol Hill testimony on the need to repeal DADT, he hasn’t had a single servicemember raise the issue with him in the three town hall sessions he’s held. Troops told McClatchy that the policy change wasn’t a big issue because they’ve “already served with gays and lesbians, they accepted that some kind of change was imminent, and, they said, the nation was too engulfed in two wars for a prolonged debate about it.”

Related Posts

Politics

McCain On DADT: ‘I Will Be Glad To Listen To The Views Of Military Leaders’

By Matt Corley on Feb 4, 2010 at 5:46 pm

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) talks to Adm. Michael Mullen.In October 2006, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said that “the day that the leadership of the military comes to” and says the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy “ought to change,” he would “seriously” consider changing it. In an interview with the Washington Blade in 2008, he said he would “defer to our military commanders” on the issue.

But in a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Tuesday, McCain bristled when the Pentagon’s top military and civilian leaders, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Adm. Mike Mullen and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, announced they were in favor of overturning the policy. “I’m happy to say we still have a Congress of the United States that would have to pass a law to repeal ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’, despite your efforts to repeal it in many respects by fiat,” said McCain.

In an interview on Bill Bennett’s radio show today, McCain claimed “the policy is working” and repeated his opposition to repealing, but claimed that he would “be glad to listen to the views of military leaders”:

MCCAIN: Look, the policy is working. I talk to military all the time. I have a lot of contact with them. The policy is working and the president made a commitment in his campaign that he would reverse it and the president then made the announcement that wants it reversed. And it is a law. It has to be changed. So Admiral Mullen said, speaking for himself only, he thought it ought to be reversed and of course Secretary Gates said that. I do not. I do not know what the other military leadership wants. I know that I have a letter signed by over a thousand retired admirals and generals that said they don’t want it reversed. And so, I will be glad to listen to the views of military leaders. I always have. But I’m not changing my position in support of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell unless there is the significant support for the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. And I would remind you that we’re in two wars. You know that and our listeners know that. And do we need, don’t we need a serious assessment of the effect on morale or battle and combat effectiveness before we go forward with a reversal in a campaigning, carrying out an Obama campaign.

Listen here:

On Fox News last night, McCain also said that he was hoping “to get the opinion from our military leadership,’ saying that “If they can show me the evidence that it needs to be changed, obviously, then I would give that serious consideration.” McCain says that he has “respect” for Mullen’s view, but he dismisses it as simply an “individual opinion.”

But McCain has previously said that the “individual opinion” of military leaders for whom he has “respect” influenced his views on military policy. In June 2009, he told Ana Marie Cox that he originally supported the policy because General Colin Powell had “strongly recommended” it and he hadn’t “heard General Powell or any of the other military leaders reverse their position.” Powell released a statement yesterday saying he now opposes the continuation of DADT because “attitudes and circumstances have changed.”

So basically, McCain is willing to “listen” to military leaders on DADT — he’s just not going to let their expert opinions get in the way of what he already thinks.

Transcript: Read more

Politics

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mullen: ‘It is my personal belief’ that repealing DADT is ‘the right thing to do.’

By Amanda Terkel on Feb 2, 2010 at 2:01 pm

Today, the Senate Armed Services Committee held hearing on the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, the first such session in 17 years. During the hearing, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Michael Mullen made the powerful announcement that he personally it is time to allow gay men and women to serve openly:

MULLEN: Mr. Chairman, speaking for myself and myself only, it is my personal belief that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would be the right thing to do. No matter how I look at this issue, I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy that forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens.

Watch it:

As early as May 2008, Mullen told graduating cadets at the U.S. Military Academy that the military was ready to accept gay servicemembers if Congress repeals DADT. Last month, Gen. John Shalikashvili, who implemented DADT while serving as Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman under President Clinton, said that it is time to repeal the policy.

Transcript: Read more

Security

Mullen: ‘I Have Not Seen’ Iran Act So Provocatively, But Admits ‘I Haven’t Seen The Full Video’

By Faiz Shakir on Jan 14, 2008 at 10:36 am

Last Friday, Admiral Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke to reporters at the Pentagon about the recent incident in the Strait of Hormuz where five Iranian speedboats were alleged to have harassed three major U.S. warships.

An immediate White House statement urged the Iranians to “refrain from such provocative actions that could lead to a dangerous incident.” Mullen uttered the same talking points in his press conference, claiming he had never seen something as “provocative and dramatic.” But just five minutes later, Mullen conceded he hadn’t actually seen the full tape of the encounter:

MULLEN: The — there have been other situations where certainly ships transiting the Straits of Hormuz have been approached. To my knowledge, I have not seen one as both provocative and dramatic as this.

[...]

Q: Is there any reason why the full videotape of the entire episode can’t be released?

MULLEN: I know the secretary’s got it. We’re considering it, and I can’t say it will be addressed this afternoon, but I know that request is there. From my perspective, first of all, I haven’t seen the full video myself. But I’ve been told about it and I’m told there’s nothing, you know, particularly inconsistent or alarming with it from that perspective.

Watch it:

[flv http://video.thinkprogress.org/2008/01/mullenboats.320.240.flv]

In the days following the initial media reports of the Iranian encounter in the Persian Gulf, the Bush administration has offered a dissembling response to three key elements of the alleged threat:

1. The Dangerous Verbal Threat. Initial media reports said that a “threatening radio call from the Iranians” warned that the U.S. “ships would explode.” Later, we learned that the verbal threat may not have come from an Iranian, and may instead have been the voice of a famous heckler.

2. The Boxes In The Water. After the verbal threat, the Iranian boats were observed “dropping objects in the water.” But as the Washington Post reported, U.S. ships at the time of the incident determined the boxes “posed no threat to the American vessels.” “After passing the white objects, commanders on the USS Port Royal and its accompanying destroyer and frigate decided there was so little danger from the objects that they did not bother to radio other ships to warn them.”

3. Boats Coming At The Ships. Initial media reports said “the Iranians ‘maneuvered aggressively’ in the direction of the U.S. ships.” But as the video shows, “the only boat that was close enough to be visible to the U.S. ships was unarmed.” “The footage of the boats maneuvering provides no visual evidence of Iranian boats ‘making a run on U.S. ships.’”

Piggybacking off the media reports of the “provocative” encounter with Iran in the Strait of Hormuz, Bush has sounded the urgent need to confront Iran at almost every stop along his Middle East journey.

UPDATE: Newshoggers has more. Watch the full video of the incident here:

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