Mullen: Surge Will Entail More Casualties

(AP)  Updated 8:07 p.m. EST

The nation's highest-ranking military officer told soldiers and Marines Monday that the insurgency in Afghanistan has grown in the last three years and he expects casualties to rise next year as additional U.S. troops pour into the war.

"This is the most dangerous time I've seen growing up the last four decades in uniform," Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told about 1,000 Marines at Camp Lejeune.

Many attending Mullen's talks at Camp Lejeune and Fort Campbell, Ky., will be sent to Afghanistan in President Barack Obama's plan announced last week.

Altogether, the first wave of President Barack Obama's new Afghanistan surge will add about 16,000 U.S. troops who got their orders over the past few days.

About 1,500 Marines from Camp Lejeune in North Carolina will leave for Afghanistan later this month, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters. He would not be precise about when those troops arrive, but military sources have said the first forces are expected on the ground by Christmas.

After the first of the year, the Marines will begin sending an additional 6,200 from Lejeune and Camp Pendleton, Calif., the Pentagon announced Monday. The Army will also begin sending in the first of its forces in the spring — a training brigade with about 3,400 soldiers from Fort Drum, N.Y. Three brigades from Fort Campbell's 101st Airborne Division are also heading to Afghanistan and about 4,100 support forces from various places will deploy early.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates signed the deployment orders last week. They cover a little more than half the 30,000 additional troops approved by Mr. Obama as part of an overhauled war plan announced last week.

"We are not winning, which means we are losing and as we are losing, the message traffic out there to (insurgency) recruits keeps getting better and better and more keep coming," Mullen told soliders. "That's why we need the 30,000 and in particular, and you are the lead on this, getting in there this year, over the next 12 months, almost in lightning bolt fashion."

Mullen told 700 soldiers at Fort Campbell that military leaders believe they have 18 to 24 months to reverse the insurgency, in what he expects to be a tough and bloody fight.

"I am sure we will sustain an increase in the level of casualties, and I don't want to be in any way unclear about that," he told troops at Fort Campbell. "This is what happened in Iraq during the surge and as tragic as it is, to turn this thing around, it will be a part of this surge, as well."

"I expect a tough fight in 2010," Mullen said.

Pvt. William Schenider, 20 from Woodbridge, N.J., expects to deploy from Camp Lejeune early next year. As a new rifleman, the deployment will be his first.

"This is what we've been training up for nine months. We want to put our training to use," Schenider said.

Many questions from soldiers and Marines focused on the role of Pakistan and America's NATO allies in containing al Qaeda and the Taliban and on the July 2011 withdraw date.

Mullen said the 2011 date is not an end or withdrawal date.

"In the long run, it is not going to be about killing Taliban," Mullen told the Marines at Camp Lejeune. "In the long run, it's going to be because the Afghan people want them out."

Mullen said the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan is "the epicenter for global terrorism."

He said Pakistan's military has made huge gains in routing out terrorists from that country, but reminded soldiers that Pakistan is a sovereign nation and that the U.S. wants to maintain a long-term stable relationship with Pakistan.

"In the long run, we are anxious to get at al Qaeda and the leadership that resides in that border area," he said. "Strategically the way you do this in my view is to bring pressure from both sides."

[lemonskinkus]

It takes a real rocket scientist to make that kind of ridiculous statement, (General) Duh.

[bubbadubba]

"Mullen: Surge Will Entail More Casualties"

Do ya think?
How exciting for the generals, more dead soldiers. That is what they live for, kind of a chess game or video game only real people die for their stupidity.

[nextgenman09]

Mullen is another old white man still living in 1950. A Rumsfeld Clone.

[FauxNews]

Of course there will be more casualties. Putting more sitting ducks in a pond makes the hunter's job easier.

[cattiej]

To all the people who have a husband, wife, son or daughter in the war, it they are professional military, then they already know that there will be friends and comrades who will die. They themselves may die. The is the cost of the illegal war. We need the draft to be started up again. We all need to be have a war tax that we all have to pay, in every paycheck or retirement check. We need all the politicans, their sons, daughter, wife's or husbands to sign up and put on a uniform and go to Afghanastan & Iraq. Obama should be impeached because we voted for and believed him when he wrote to us and told us and millions of others that the first thing he would do when he was President would be to bring the troops home. Former President Eisenhower said that if we have a professional military and a Congress that wanted to go to war, no one would be able to stop them. There has been fighting for 1500 years in these countries. What makes the President and Congress think they can change the people of Afghanastan. The only thing the Afghan people want is our money and to sell us drugs made from the poppies that they grow in abundance.

[AOCGUY]

cattiej - If you voted for Obama because you thought he would bring the troops home from Afghanistan then you were mistaken. At no time did Obama say that, in fact he said the opposite - OEF was the right war.

[BeckieBest]

More casualties says the Institute for the Obviously Obvious.

[stn_sage]

"In the long run, it is not going to be about killing Taliban," Mullen told the Marines at Camp Lejeune. "In the long run, it's going to be because the Afghan people want them out." (Mullen quote fm article)
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What malarkey! Mullen knows better than this!
Ob course, it's going to be about killing the Taliban!
They're not going to go just because the non-Taliban majority want them to...even in the so-called, undefined 'long run'!
You'll have to kill them, because they won't quit until they get what they want...control...so stop 'soft-pedaling' the slaughter that awaits in the future...both them and us!

[reveal4]

stn sage...Who do you support in the political realm today?......Anyone?

[stn_sage]

reveal4...At this time, I have no decided favorite...time will tell.

[armyoftwelve]

GOOD LUCK! Hopefully you guys wil get some stuff from iraq before our
leaders give all that stuff away to the iraqis.

[fedup12]

by brianbwb-2009 December 6, 2009 10:37 PM EST
Actually unlike hypocrites, my words and actions are consequent, I now live in Bali.
Yes, our justice system is not good enough, as evidenced by the hundreds being freed because the judge "sold" them to a private prison, among other miscarriages.
I don't drink, but only a few California wines are up to international standard.
The government? that is too long a response, let's just say Iraq and Afghanistan, collapsing economy, and leave it at that.
And yes, Americans are hypocritical.
I dare you to prove me wrong.
--------------------------------------------
I have known many EU folk that are JUST as hypocritical as Americans. I had a French dude just the other day telling me to go shoot some more Indians. Would be like me reminding him of the Guillotine and viva la revolution. I guarantee that Americans do not corner the market on hypocrisy but again that is a matter of opinion. Funny how your story has changed... From Detriot to make a point and now you are from Bali.

Liking wine is a function of taste. Many people worldwide like American wine and some have won awards in Europe. I guarantee not all European wines are great either.

Liking our justice system is also subjective. For instance in Italy Jury's are not sequestered and allow their jurors to be bombarded by public opinions like this and vital criminal cases do not have to be unanimous, just a majority. I bet they have a lot of innocent people in jail there. American justice seems to have an advantage there.

As far as the Govt. I agree about Iraq. But isnt Democracy grand? We can change it. Some of us are working toward that end. We are just coming off a really bad decade. It happens. Italy has had a few.

You are uppity. Now get back on your high horse and ride off into the sunset.

[hungry1968-17]

by army166 December 7, 2009 2:06 PM EST
The president 'admitted' nothing to Wallace. Wallace asked General Petreaus if Obama had acknowledged that the surge was a success and Petreaus responded 'in fact, he did'. So you are mis-stating the facts and Cheney and Bush could be consultants to the patients in some loony house, but they messed up the entire Afghan-Iraq operation. Petreaus and the military finally came up with a plan when Bush had failed at everything else. Bush and Cheney did not invent the surge, the Army did.







Funny how GOP spokesman and chief Bush apologist Chris Wallace was more concerned with Obama admitting that the surge worked, than he was in the actual war on terror.

So much for his being a "legitimate journalist".

[fedup12]

Funny how GOP spokesman and chief Bush apologist Chris Wallace was more concerned with Obama admitting that the surge worked, than he was in the actual war on terror.
-------------------------------------

Are you guys talking about the Iraq surge. You know the one where we shouldnt have been there in the first place? Where we abandoned Afghanistan the real country that actually did play a part in 9/11? Where we lat the taliban get dug in like ticks? And have laid another almost insurmountable problem on the GWB successor.

That surge?