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Monday was meant to be a historic day, one in which a woman for the first time ascended to the ranks of the military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff. Instead, the Defense Department will mark a more sober milestone. With the retirement of Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday, for the first time in U.S. history, interim officers are filling three of the eight seats on the Pentagon’s storied board of most senior military members. So Monday brought a different sort of handover ceremony. Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the vice chief of naval operations and the nominee to replace Gilday, assumed...

​Robert O’Neill, the SEAL member who killed Osama bin Laden during a raid on the terrorist’s Pakistan lair in 2011​, called President Biden a “disaster” and ​urged Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley to resign over the catastrophe caused by the US military pullout in Afghanistan. “So, @POTUS is a disaster,” the former SEAL said on Twitter. “This is the worst loss in American history. Our most popular president has vanished. Prove me wrong.” He added: “Joe Biden opposed the raid to kill bin Laden. At least he lost Afghanistan in 7 months.” O’Neill also ​had Milley​...

There is no more sacred room for military officers than 2E924 of the Pentagon, a windowless and secure vault where the Joint Chiefs of Staff meet regularly to wrestle with classified matters. Its more common name is “the Tank.” The Tank resembles a small corporate boardroom, with a gleaming golden oak table, leather swivel armchairs and other mid-century stylings. Inside its walls, flag officers observe a reverence and decorum for the wrenching decisions that have been made there. Hanging prominently on one of the walls is The Peacemakers, a painting that depicts an 1865 Civil War strategy session with President...

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Donald Trump will tap Gen. Mark Milley as his next top military adviser, choosing a battle-hardened commander who has served as chief of the Army for the last three years, U.S. officials said Friday. If confirmed by the Senate, Milley would succeed Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the pinnacle of a military career. Dunford, a former commandant of the Marine Corps and commander of coalition troops in Afghanistan, is expected to serve out his term as Joint Chiefs chairman, which ends next Oct. 1. Milley, who commanded troops during...

Barack Obamas repeated insistence that Bashar al-Assad must leave office and that there are moderate rebel groups in Syria capable of defeating him has in recent years provoked quiet dissent, and even overt opposition, among some of the most senior officers on the Pentagons Joint Staff. Their criticism has focused on what they see as the administrations fixation on Assads primary ally, Vladimir Putin. In their view, Obama is captive to Cold War thinking about Russia and China, and hasnt adjusted his stance on Syria to the fact both countries share Washingtons anxiety about the spread of terrorism in and...

America’s top military officer condemned in the strongest possible terms a Defense Department course that taught troops to prep for a “total war” on Islam using “Hiroshima”-style tactics. “It was totally objectionable, against our values and it wasn’t academically sound,” Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at a Pentagon press conference on Thursday. The instructor responsible for the course, Army Lt. Col. Matthew A. Dooley, is “no longer in a teaching status,” Dempsey added — but he is still employed at the Joint Forces Staff College in Norfolk, Va Dempsey and his...

Newly unsealed grand jury testimony by ex-President Richard Nixon shows he warned prosecutors and grand jurors not to probe an episode from 1971, when he discovered that the Joint Chiefs of Staff had been spying on him and national security adviser Henry Kissinger. “Don’t open that can of worms,” Nixon told his interrogators in June 1975, when he spent roughly eleven hours over two days’ time fielding – and sometimes deflecting – questions put to him by lawyers for the Watergate Special Prosecution Force and two grand jurors flown in from Washington. *** And he confided what his predecessor in...

President Barack Obama has chosen Army Gen. Martin Dempsey as the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to AP sources. Dempsey is a surprising choice because he began a four-year term as Army chief of staff just last month. Service chiefs have rarely, if ever, been promoted to JCS chairman so quickly. Marine Gen. James Cartwright, an Obama favorite, had long been considered the frontrunner for the JCS post. Gen. Cartwright was passed over, government officials said Tuesday, due to an inquiry into anonymous accusations that the general had a relationship with

I heard on Fox we have a replacement for Adm Mullen? found no thread here.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A general installed just last month as the Army's top officer is President Barack Obama's surprise choice to become the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, two people familiar with the selection process said Wednesday. Gen. Martin Dempsey, an accomplished veteran of the Iraq war, would succeed Navy Adm. Mike Mullen as the president's top military adviser when Mullen's term as chairman ends Sept. 30. Dempsey would have to be confirmed by the Senate.

WASHINGTON - The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Monday he considers homosexuality to be immoral and the military should not condone it by allowing gay personnel to serve openly, the Chicago Tribune reported. Marine Gen. Peter Pace likened homosexuality to adultery, which he said was also immoral, the newspaper reported on its Web site. "I do not believe the United States is well served by a policy that says it is OK to be immoral in any way," Pace told the newspaper in a wide-ranging interview. Pace, a native of Brooklyn, N.Y., and a 1967 graduate of...

Washington Post Editor-- As a military verteran, I am starting a grass-roots campaign that I plan to spread throughout the entire Washington DC metropolitan area: that is to have every single service member and veteran that currently receives the Post to UNSUBSCRIBE as a direct result of your callous, disrespectful decision to publish Mr. Toles' editorial cartoon on 29 January 2006. To place a wounded American soldier in the context of that cartoon was nothing less than a raging insult and a spit-in-the-face to every military member that has fought, is fighting or will fight for democracy. Can you even...

Mr. Philip Bennett Managing Editor, The Washington Post 1150 15th Street NW Washington, DC 20071 To The Editor of the Washington Post: We were extremely disappointed to see the editorial cartoon by Tom Toles on page B6 in the January 29 edition. Using the likeness of a service member who has lost his arms and legs in war as the central theme of a cartoon is beyond tasteless. Editorial cartoons are often designed to exaggerate issues - and your paper is obviously free to address any topic, including the state of readiness of today's Armed Forces. However, we believe you...

Page A20We were extremely disappointed to see the Jan. 29 editorial cartoon by Tom Toles. Using the likeness of a service member who has lost his arms and legs in war as the central theme of a cartoon was beyond tasteless. Editorial cartoons are often designed to exaggerate issues, and The Post is obviously free to address any topic, including the state of readiness of the armed forces. However, The Post and Mr. Toles have done a disservice to readers and to The Post's reputation by using such a callous depiction of those who volunteered to defend this nation and,...

This week people have been doing more agonizing than laughing at newspaper cartoons. Not just Muslims, but now America’s military forces – and the rest of us who support our warriors – are disgusted by a cartoon. Specifically the cartoon drawn by Tom Toles and published in the Washington Post making light of an amputee recovering from battle wounds. Beyond being repulsed by cartoons, the two movements have nothing in common. Here is the statement sent by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the Washington Post: We were extremely disappointed to see the Jan. 29 editorial cartoon by Tom Toles.

NEW YORK A Tom Toles editorial cartoon published in The Washington Post on Monday and on its Web site has drawn a very rare and very strong protest letter to the editors from all six members of The Joint Chiefs of Staff, E&P has learned. The letter, not yet published by the Post, charges that the six military leaders "believe you and Mr. Toles have done a disservice to your readers and your paper's reputation by using such a callous depiction of those who have volunteered to defend this nation, and as a result, have suffered traumatic and life-altering wounds....

WASHINGTON (AP) - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has recommended to President Bush that he nominate Marine Gen. Peter Pace to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a senior official said Wednesday. Bush was expected to announce his choice soon, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Pace, 59, currently the Joint Chiefs vice chairman, would be the first Marine to hold the top job in the military. The Joint Chiefs chairman is the senior uniformed adviser to the president and the secretary of defense. It is widely expected that Bush will name Navy Adm....