Mullen: IAs still needed as forces leave Iraq - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

Mullen: IAs still needed as forces leave Iraq

Sailors and airmen should continue to expect supplemental assignments to Iraq and Afghanistan for the next several years, even after more U.S. troops arrive to support missions in Afghanistan, the top U.S. military officer said Monday.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said the Navy’s individual augmentee deployments — known as in-lieu-of deployments in the Air Force — would continue even as the U.S. “shifts its weight” to focus on Afghanistan.

“As long as we have the Army and the Marine Corps dwell time below 2-to-1, the Air Force and the Navy need to provide that capability,” Mullen said.

He spoke to reporters after a lunchtime speech at the Navy League’s Sea Air Space exposition outside Washington, at which he urged his audience to remember the need for Pentagon programs to focus first on current service members, then wounded veterans, and then the “stuff” he said was of most interest to his audience of primarily defense contractors.

Congress and the Pentagon cut “people programs” at their peril, Mullen said, stressing how much importance the Pentagon’s 2010 budget placed on the human side of the Defense Department.

“Sixty to 70 percent of every dollar we had was connected to our people — uniformed, family, retirees, medical, reserve, civilians, you name it. That’s a big part of our investment, and we’ve gotta get it right for the future.”

Also important is breaking down inter-service cultural barriers to help commanders solve problems more creatively, Mullen said. U.S. forces in the Central Command area of operations have about 800 helicopters, he said, but they need more. The Washington response is to buy more, he said, but “that’s not the answer.”

“We’ve got to use the ones we have better. I ask you to open up your minds, look for creative ways. All of us in the military, when called to fight in wartime, that’s our top mission, to think like that.”

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