Joint Chiefs Chair Warns Obama & Clinton on Iraq

[sabra]

Source: ABC News

ABC News' Jonathan Karl Reports: The Joint Chiefs chairman has a word of warning to Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton: A rapid of withdrawal from Iraq would lead to a "chaotic situation" and would "turnaround the gains we have achieved, and struggled to achieve, and turn them around overnight.

Admiral Mullen's comments came in a response to a question about what the Joint Chiefs are doing to prepare for a new president, given that two of the candidates have called for a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq.

"We need to be prepared across the board for what a new president will bring," Mullen said. "I do worry about a rapid withdrawal. . . turn around the gains we have achieved and struggled to achieve and turn them around overnight."

Asked to define a "rapid withdrawal," Mullen said, "a withdrawal that would be so fast that it would leave us in a chaotic situation and the gains we have achieved would be lost."

That said, Mullen added: "When a new president comes in, I will get my orders and I will carry them out."



Read more: http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/02/joint-chiefs-ch.html

[Jacobin]

1. the military should stay out of politics

So, how long does this douchebag, sitting in the Green Zone, want soldiers to stay in Iraq so he can add more scrambled eggs to his silly ass hat?

:puke:

[OffWithTheirHeads]

2. Ya gotta love it

"A rapid of withdrawal from Iraq would lead to a "chaotic situation"

Compared to what? The peace and prosperity that abounds now?

These people are all IDIOTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

[Upfront]

11. Agreed

First thing I would do is fire his ass down the road.

[saigon68]

3. Mullins is a Fucking asswipe who cares NOTHING for his subordinates

Being killed on a daily basis for Halliburton profits.

[leveymg]

4. Just declare victory, and get the hell out. Already.

Enough. Already.

[bhikkhu]

22. Exactly. No better time to declare victory.

I don't even care here if we have to do a little orwellian history rewrites to make it all sound better...

The military objective was achieved when Saddam was captured - enough already. Withdraw to the huge bases we built there while things cool down, but let the Iraqis have their country back already. 5000 years of practice, I think they can manage.

[C_U_L8R]

5. I believe that chaotic situation is of their own making

They'd be much better off if they hadn't partied with Bush.
it's their mess, they're gonna have to clean it up.

[TwilightGardener]

6. Nobody is advocating a "rapid withdrawal"--it would take 16-18 months, at the soonest.

Ridiculous straw man argument. The military should STFU--they are not a wing of the Republican party.

[elocs]

7. Right! We're not talking about a bug-out here. An orderly withdrawal will take months.

Also, exactly how does pouring billions of dollars each month for years until it contributes to the collapse of our economy help things?

[hedgehog]

12. If a bug-out would get our people out faster, then I'm all for a bug-out! nt

[winter999]

29. Not to be nit-picky, but you're right, the Military is not part of

the Republican Part. It's part of the U.S. Government.

(sorry, fell out laughing at a previous post that said the military needs to stay out of government)

[IsItJustMe]

8. Who has not been untouched by this unprecedented politicization process set forth by this

administration. I wonder if this country will ever come back to any type of objectivity anywhere in our govt agencies?

[skepticscott]

9. What the Democrats need to point out

every time this point is brought up is that Iraq is going to descend into chaos no matter when we leave. If that wasn't inevitable from the moment we deposed Saddam, it certainly was made so by the hideously incompetent conducting of the occupation by Shrub and his cronies. It will happen if we leave tomorrow, it will happen if we leave in 6 months and it will happen if we leave in 5 years. The only question is, how many more thousands of American lives and how many more hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars are we willing to sacrifice while we stand there holding our finger in the dike?

[EFerrari]

10. Could LEAD to a chaotic situation?

:wtf:

[struggle4progress]

25. Sure: if we leave too fast, Iraq could collapse into sectional violence,

with headless bodies dumped in rivers and a lot of suicide bombers, a massive refugee problem, almost complete failure of the sanitary and utility infrastructure, arbitrary arrests and tortures in grim little prisons -- y'know, the whole nine yards

The near-paradise that the US has created there is in danger of being lost

[EFerrari]

27. The brass at the Pentagram know very well that insurgencies

might get worse when the occupiers pull out but that the occupation is the engine that drives the insurgency. They know that this White House fax is mendacity.

[unkachuck]

13. time for a new Joint Chiefs chairman?....n/t

[hedgehog]

14. I think so, especially because I fear the current Chair is antsy

for the Navy to start bombing Iran.

[Ichingcarpenter]

15. They better damn well start drawing up plans now

Because when the Democrats take power it is gonna happen like it or not

AND THAT IS CALLED PLAN B.......Scheisskopfs

[Robbien]

16. Don't look now but your occupied territory has just been invaided and bombed

by one of its neighbors.

Doesn't appear your military presence is doing much good.

[tabasco]

17. Fuck him.

The USA is not a military dictatorship.

[54anickel]

18. There was a nice piece in Slate that makes it sound like a chaotic situation is pretty much a given

no matter what we decide to do....


http://www.slate.com/id/2185374/

snip>

To sum up, then, two points can be inferred. First, Iraq's sectarian factions are nowhere near reconciliation. The point of the surge was to create enough "breathing space" to allow for such a political goal. If the goal isn't reached by July—that is, within the 15-month span that was always, inexorably, the duration of the surge—then, in strategic terms, the surge will not have succeeded.

Second, there are many reasons for the reduction in violence and casualties these last few months. The surge and, still more, Gen. Petraeus' counterinsurgency tactics are among them. So are Sadr's cease-fire and the Sunni Awakening—neither of which has much to do with the surge, one of which (the Awakening) was initiated by the Sunnis before the surge was even announced. And now, both Sadr's cease-fire and the Awakening are imperiled.

What to do about these trends?

This conundrum takes us to the third news story of (dissonant) note, in the New York Times, which reports that the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, Adm. William J. Fallon, thinks there should be a "pause" in troop withdrawals from Iraq after the last of the surge troops depart this July—but that this pause should be brief and that the withdrawals should resume soon after.

snip>

The way things are going, the next president, whatever his or her preferences, may be stuck with more severe problems than Bush ever was—and will almost certainly have to make decisions that are harder.


more...

[EndElectoral]

19. Mullen needs to read Eckhart Tolle

btw..an "Admiral's" perspective on a guerilla land insurgency is something to be questioned.

[poppysgal]

20. Oh brother

:banghead:

[bluestateguy]

21. Well I guess that General will be looking for work come January 20th

If you don't show the military establishment who is in charge then they will push you around all over the place.

[Maccagirl]

23. Yes, just ask Bill Clinton

re: Don't Ask/Don't Tell. He was never their "boy" and we all know how difficult the brass can make life for the CIC while all the while saluting and "following orders".

[Seabiscuit]

24. Time to can this Joint Chief's ass. He's touting neocon propaganda.

[jody]

26. Admiral Mullen is correct. Dubya was wrong to invade Iraq but the U.S. has a moral obligation to

withdraw at a rate that allows Iraq forces to quickly assume combat operations while the U.S. continues to provide air and logistics support.

The latter two roles will continue for five to ten years because Iraq's air force and logistics capability were destroyed.

[tanyev]

28. And how worried was he about a rapid invasion?

That turned into chaos pretty quickly.

[eringer]

30. Ah C'Mon -- Try To Remember When The Department Wasn't So Political

Concentrate on your briefing books and you will be fine. Let the new Commander-in-Chief be the Commander-in-Chief. That much you know how to do.