WASHINGTON – The Navy admiral nominated to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told senators yesterday that U.S. military efforts in Iraq would fail unless Iraqi leaders did more to bridge sectarian divides.
Adm. Michael Mullen also warned that a rapid exit of U.S. troops could turn Iraq into a “cauldron” for broader Middle East strife.
The failure of the Iraqi government to make progress toward political unity imperils the future of Iraq, Mullen said. Unless things change, he said, “no amount of troops in no amount of time will make much of a difference.”
Mullen said he believed the U.S. troop increase this year in Iraq has helped tamp down violence, saying security is “not great, but better.”
He also said the United States risked breaking the Army if the Pentagon decides to maintain escalated troop levels in Iraq beyond spring 2008.
During more than 3½ hours of often-blunt testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, both Mullen and Marine Corps Gen. James E. Cartwright, the nominee to be vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, were generally praised for giving candid answers about the security and political situation in Iraq.
The outgoing chairman, Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, has faced sharp criticism from Congress during his two-year tenure for painting what lawmakers from both parties have described as an overly optimistic portrait of the situation in Iraq.
Mullen and Cartwright were nevertheless careful not to stray too far from assessments about Iraq given by other top administration officials, saying they would await a September progress report from military and civilian officials before they could decide on the future of the additional troops in Iraq.
The officers said the U.S. and Iraqi military had made gains against Al-Qaeda in Iraq, the homegrown Sunni Arab extremist group that U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded is foreign-led. Cartwright said Al-Qaeda in Iraq seemed “to have an unlimited pool from which to draw.”
Mullen, who initially opposed the Bush administration's “surge” plan but came to believe it could work if accompanied by enough economic development and political reconciliation, was generally unsparing in his criticism of Iraqi politicians.
It is imperative that U.S. officials “bring as much pressure on them as we possibly can,” Mullen said.
Neither Mullen nor Cartwright faced particularly difficult questioning, in part because neither man has been central to the Pentagon's decision-making about the Iraq war. Both men are expected to be confirmed swiftly by the Senate.
Most of yesterday's session focused on the future of the Iraq war, a sign of just how much the Bush administration's plans for the U.S. military have been altered by the past four years.
After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, top administration officials spoke of transforming the military to win quick campaigns with relatively few combat troops and become more adaptable to fight terror networks such as al-Qaeda.
Mullen made clear yesterday that he expected the military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan to impose a strain on the armed services for years to come. He said that even if the United States were to cut its force in Iraq by half next year, it still would be three to four years before it would be possible to guarantee that troops could spend two years at home between yearlong combat tours, a deployment tempo that Mullen said was the goal.
