Joint Chiefs Nominee Mullen: 'I do think we will be there for years, not months'

Above: A soldier from the 82nd Airborne Division restrains and searches a detainee in Al Haymer in July.

If a post-surge troop presence of 15 combat brigades is kept in Iraq beyond next spring, the U.S. military will need three to four years to get to the Pentagon’s goal of two years at home for every year deployed to the war zone, the nominee for the nation’s top military job told the Senate on Tuesday.

Navy Adm. Mike Mullen also told the Senate Armed Services Committee, “I do think we will be there for years, not months.”

And not just in Iraq and Afghanistan. The war on terror, Mullen said, “will likely take our troops to places we do not now foresee and will demand of them skills they may not yet possess.”

He seemed to acknowledge that one of those potential foes could be Iran. “We must stay ready to deter if possible and defeat if necessary threats from regional powers who possess conventional and in some cases nuclear capabilities,” he said.

Read the rest at Army Times

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