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Note: The following text is a quote: Mullen Stresses Precision, Innovation to Graduates By Jim Garamone American Forces Press Service FORT LESLEY J. MCNAIR, Washington, D.C., June 10, 2010 – The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff today told graduates of the National Defense University here that their careers will be dominated by their understanding of the precise application of military force and national power. NDU’s National War College and the Industrial College of the Armed Forces graduated 603 people from the armed services, civilian agencies and many foreign countries. U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and King Abdullah of...

Someone get Diane Sawyer a crash course in indirect fire. Discussing this morning the recent flurry of rocket and mortar attacks landing inside the Green Zone in Baghdad, Sawyer supposed that the insurgents had somehow breached the perimeter themselves and fired from inside the US embassy compound! Sawyer spoke with Jonathan Karl during the opening minutes of today’s Good Morning America. DIANE SAWYER: But let’s begin with this breaking news from Iraq, reports that mortars have landed inside the US Embassy compound in Baghdad. ABC national security correspondent Jonathan Karl has been working this story. Jonathan, good morning to you....

WASHINGTON, Nov. 6, 2007 – Improvised-explosive-device, mortar and rocket attacks have declined by 50 percent since the height of the troop surge in April, a Multinational Force Iraq spokesman said today. Related to this dramatic decrease is a rise in the number of weapons caches uncovered by coalition forces, Navy Rear Adm. Gregory J. Smith told reporters during a news conference in Baghdad. “In April, when the majority of the surge forces had arrived in Iraq, the number of caches found spiked considerably, and in the ensuing months we’ve seen a steady increase,” Smith said of the 20,000 troop increase...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 16, 2005 – A Marine assigned to the 2nd Marine Division, 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward), was killed Sept. 15 from an indirect-fire explosion at Forward Operating Base Camp Ramadi in Iraq, military officials announced today. The Marine's name is being withheld, pending family notification. In other Iraq news, coalition forces raided an al Qaeda in Iraq terrorist complex south of Haditha that contained a car-bomb factory and weapons caches. Tips from local citizens and intelligence resources had confirmed the 12-building complex's existence. All terrorists had fled the facility before the coalition had arrived, but forces found that...

The U.S. military has launched a criminal inquiry into the killings of two Army officers at a base north of Baghdad, the military said Friday. The soldiers were killed Tuesday evening in what the military first believed was an ''indirect fire'' attack on Forward Operating Base Danger in Tikrit, 80 miles north of Baghdad, a military statement said. An indirect fire attack involves enemy artillery or mortar rounds fired from a location some distance away. ''Upon further examination of the scene by explosive ordnance personnel, it was determined the blast pattern was inconsistent with a mortar attack,'' the statement added...

November 26, 2003: The armed opposition in Iraq are taking advantage of speed and rules of engagement to defeat America's high tech weapons. Several teams of Iraqis are moving around near coalition bases at night and firing a few mortar shells, then slinking away and hiding their mortar and ammunition. The weapon used is usually a Russian made 82mm mortar. This weapon weighs about 80 pounds, but can be broken down into three pieces (the heaviest weighing 29 pounds, the lightest 22). Each 82mm mortar shell weighs about seven pounds (and contains about 14 ounces of explosives). The mortar has...