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WASHINGTON – The Pentagon's top military officer says 16,000 troops have received their orders for Afghanistan since President Barack Obama announced his new war strategy. Adm. Mike Mullen said at a news conference Thursday that the first to go — a battalion of Marines — will arrive in southern Afghanistan next week. The Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman said tens of thousands of tons of construction materials, winter gear and other equipment also are in the pipeline. Officials are moving to get the bulk of the 30,000 additional troops into the war zone by summer.

FORT CAMPBELL, Kentucky — The highest-ranking military officer in the United States on Monday told soldiers, including many bound for Afghanistan, that he expects casualties to rise next year as additional U.S. troops pour into the war.

As South Korea’s military transitions to full operational control, it’s important to remember the past 60 years of U.S. commitment to the country and to not waver in that support, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said. Navy Adm. Mike Mullen talked yesterday with servicemembers and defense civilians at U.S. Army Garrison Yongsan in Seoul, Korea. He spoke about his earlier meetings with his South Korean counterpart, citing “tremendous change” on the horizon. The Korean military is expected to assume a larger defense responsibility there in April 2012. The alliance will only get stronger, the chairman said, with...

ARLINGTON, Va. – President Barack Obama late last week asked for and received from Defense Secretary Robert Gates a copy of Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s resource request for executing the war in Afghanistan. But the request has not been introduced into the White House’s war sessions that began last week and continued on Wednesday. The document is the Afghanistan war commander’s follow-on to his earlier strategy assessment, and reportedly contains options calling for increases of 10,000 to 40,000 more troops. The Pentagon for weeks had said that the request would not be considered ahead of the strategy. As reporters in Washington...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 7, 2009 – Navy Secretary Ray Mabus yesterday said women soon will serve on submarines, suggesting a reversal of the long-standing ban by the Navy. Appearing on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” Mabus signaled that the Navy is moving closer to allowing coed personnel on submarines. “It will take a little while because you’ve got to interview people and you’ve got to be nuclear trained,” he said, referring to prerequisite steps before a sailor is assigned to a submarine. Officials previously have cited a lack of privacy and the cost of reconfiguring subs as obstacles...

Female sailors can broaden their role in the Navy by serving on submarines, an activity currently prohibited by the Armed Service, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has advised the Senate Armed Services Committee. According to Defensetech.org, a site run by Military.com, a group boasting a membership of 10 million veterans and active duty forces, Adm. Michael Mullen told senators in a recent survey that he's long been an advocate for improving diversity in the Armed Forces. "I believe we should continue to broaden opportunities for women. One policy I would like to see changed is the one...

Mullen, accompanied by Gen. David Petraeus and other top military officials, met at Ramstein Air Base in Germany with Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who is expected to ask for 30,000 to 40,000 additional troops. Mullen is now headed back to the U.S., FOX News has confirmed. Mullen asked McChrystal for the meeting earlier in the week following the leak of McChrystal's strategic assessment to hear directly from his commander what resources and how many troops he will need to succeed in Afghanistan, aides told FOX News. "He wanted to understand the request for himself before it arrives in Washington and he...

Women should be allowed to serve aboard America's fleet of nuclear submarines, the nation's top military officer, Adm. Michael Mullen, quietly has told the Senate Armed Services Committee. If the Navy agrees to it, this would be a huge policy change and potentially a significant expansion of career opportunities for female officers and sailors. Women have been barred by Navy policy from submarines, even as the sea service began 15 years ago to integrate females into other seagoing combat roles including aboard surface warships and in fighter jets. Mullen, former chief of naval operations and a career surface warfare officer,...

This Washington Post story captures the stark divide over Afghanistan, with a unified military command on the one side — including McChrystal, Mullen, and Petraeus — and a president who is not sure he wants to follow through on "the counterinsurgency strategy he set in motion six months ago" on the other. There's this anonymous quote from one observer: "He can send more troops and it will be a disaster and he will destroy the Democratic party. Or he can send no more troops and it will be a disaster and the Republicans will say he lost the war." Isn't...

Six months after it announced its strategy for Afghanistan, the Obama administration is sending mixed signals about its objectives there and how many troops are needed to achieve them. The conflicting messages are drawing increasing ire from U.S. commanders in Afghanistan and frustrating military leaders, who are trying to figure out how to demonstrate that they're making progress in the 12-18 months that the administration has given them. Adding to the frustration, according to officials in Kabul and Washington, are White House and Pentagon directives made over the last six weeks that Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. military...

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff agreed on Tuesday to provide senators with his thoughts on a controversial law prohibiting openly gay people from serving in the military. Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) won a promise from Adm. Mike Mullen that he would provide his take on the repeal of “Don’t ask, don’t tell” before the Senate Armed Services Committee holds a hearing this fall. In prepared answers for his confirmation to a second term as the nation’s top military officer, Mullen did not express any opinion on repealing the law. President Barack Obama promised to repeal the law...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States will probably need to deploy more troops to Afghanistan despite almost doubling the size of its force there this year, the top U.S. military officer said on Tuesday. The assessment by Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was the clearest signal yet that commanders will tell President Barack Obama in the coming weeks that they need extra forces to defeat Taliban insurgents. "A properly resourced counterinsurgency probably means more forces. And, without question, more time and more commitment to the protection of the Afghan people and to the development of...

As I write this article I want to make it clear that I don't blame the US Military as a whole for this. This is directed towards the decision makers, who clearly do not understand two things. The first is Islam itself, and the second being that catering to Muslims does not work. It just leads to non-Muslims becoming more like Muslims. In the last two months there has been an upsurge in the idea department of pleasing the Islamic world. Yesterday it was revealed that the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen had stated that...

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has written a searing critique of government efforts at “strategic communication” with the Muslim world, saying that no amount of public relations will establish credibility if American behavior overseas is perceived as arrogant, uncaring or insulting. The critique by the chairman, Adm. Mike Mullen, comes as the United States is widely believed to be losing ground in the war of ideas against extremist Islamist ideology...The Obama administration orders fresh efforts to counter militant propaganda, part of its broader strategy to defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan...“I would argue...

WASHINGTON - The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has written a searing critique of government efforts at “strategic communication” with the Muslim world, saying that no amount of public relations will establish credibility if American behavior overseas is perceived as arrogant, uncaring or insulting. The critique by the chairman, Adm. Mike Mullen, comes as the United States is widely believed to be losing ground in the war of ideas against extremist Islamist ideology.

WASHINGTON: Those who plotted the deadly attacks on World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001, are still alive and planning to carry out more terror strikes, a top US military general has said. "The people behind that deadly day are still at it. They live and plan and train in safe havens along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border," Navy admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said. "They would like nothing better than to see either country or both fall prey to the grip of an extremist ideology. To the degree we let them succeed, we let ourselves become...

The nation’s top military officer, in a deeply pessimistic assessment of the war in Afghanistan, said yesterday that due to years of neglect the United States is basically “starting over’’ in its battle against the radical Taliban movement and its Al Qaeda allies. ‘This is the eighth year, but there is a newness here. There is a starting again, or starting over. Iraq has been the focus, it hasn’t been Afghanistan.’ ‘We all believe there is going to be a need to accelerate the training of the Afghanistan security forces, army, and police, and that is going to take additional...

Twice on Sunday morning – and many times before that – America's top military officer, Adm. Mike Mullen, was asked point blank whether the United States is going to send more troops to Afghanistan. Twice, he refused to give a definitive answer. The answer appears clear. A variety of media reports have suggested that the new US commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, will ask for more troops, perhaps within the coming month. Moreover, Mullen himself said on CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday that the situation in Afghanistan was "serious and deteriorating." To be sure, any request for more...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top U.S. military officer on Sunday described the situation in Afghanistan as deteriorating but said the new commander on the ground had not yet requested additional troops. "I think it is serious and it is deteriorating, and I've said that over the past couple of years, that the Taliban insurgency has gotten better, more sophisticated, in their tactics," said Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff

The Talk Shows Sunday, August 23rd, 2009 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Jim Towey, president of Saint Vincent College and former director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives; Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa.; Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis.; Tammy Duckworth, an assistant Veterans Affairs secretary.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Chuck U. Schumer, D-N.Y.; Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Karl Eikenberry, U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan.FACE THE NATION (CBS): Sens. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Kent Conrad, D-N.D.; former national Democratic Party...