Mullen Warns Clinton, Obama on Iraq Pullout

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has a warning for the Democratic presidential candidates: don't pull out from Iraq too fast. Navy Admiral Michael Mullen said that a rapid withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq could potentially erase all of the gains that have been made there in the past year.

Mullen was speaking to ABC News and was responding to a question about the Joint Chiefs' preparations for a new Administration, especially one that may want to withdraw from Iraq. Mullen, whose term will extend into the next Administration, Republican or Democrat, said that the military needs to be "prepared across the board" for a new president and perhaps a new strategy. "When a new president comes in, I will get my orders and I will carry them out," he said.

However, Mullen said that he feared a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq with the next administration.

"I do worry about a rapid withdrawal. . . [that would] turn around the gains we have achieved and struggled to achieve and turn them around overnight."

But Mullen was coy about what "rapid withdrawal" meant, choosing only to repeat his concerns about strategic losses in Iraq. He said that by rapid withdrawal, he meant one "that would be so fast that it would leave us in a chaotic situation and the gains we have achieved would be lost."

Technically, the Joint Chiefs of Staff is a military advisory committee to the president. The Chiefs are not directly in the chain of command, although the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is the highest-ranking officer in the military and the other members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are the highest ranking officers in their respective branches.

Mullen's comments are a bit of a reversal for the Joint Chiefs, who earlier this month came out publicly against Iraq Commander Gen. David Petraeus's plan to halt the drawdown in U.S. forces in Iraq this summer for a strategic assessment. The Joint Chiefs were concerned at the time that the strain on the armed forces from an extended presence in Iraq was too great to justify the pause. Now it appears that those concerns have been addressed. Defense Secretary Robert Gates also recently sided with Petraeus in the dispute.