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Retired Admiral Mike Mullen is advising the Biden administration to negotiate peace between Russia and Ukraine as World War 3 becomes a real possibility. Mullen, who was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, is saying that Biden should back off on the reckless talk and get to working on diplomacy.

DONALD TRUMP was yesterday facing questions about whether military chiefs fully back his handling of the anti-racism protests after an excoriating rebuke by his former defence secretary gained the support of a Republican senator. The US president tried to wave away a searing critique by Jim Mattis, his Pentagon chief until December 2018, by claiming he fired Mr Mattis – who resigned over Syria policy disagreements – and calling him “the world’s most overrated general”. However, Mr Mattis’s 640-word statement, which saw him argue Mr Trump was the only American president in history who tries to divide rather than unite...

Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen broke his silence Tuesday to say he was 'sickened' by the use of U.S. National Guard forces to push protesters out of Lafayette park to make way for President Trump's photo-op. 'I am deeply worried that as they execute their orders, the members of our military will be co-opted for political purposes,' Mullen warned. 'I have to date been reticent to speak out on issues surrounding President Trump's leadership, but we are at an inflection point, and the events of the past few weeks have made it impossible to remain...

In Senate hearings Thursday, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen shot back at Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) for implying that Mullen is not in charge of troops and is thus not qualified to say that the military should end its ban on openly gay service.

Contrary to some media speculation, top military leadership knew as early as late 2009 that Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl had deserted. During an open-book question and answer session in Afghanistan, members of Bergdahl’s platoon directly asked then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admiral Mike Mullen whether he was aware of Bergdahl’s desertion. Mullen “told me that he knew of the circumstances surrounding his walking off,” former Sgt. Matt Vierkant, one of the platoon members, told Fox News, and “that they were developing leads and following leads, trying to do everything they could to get him back.” Evan Buetow and Cody Full,...

Emails obtained through a federal lawsuit show that two top aides to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were running interference internally during the 2012 Benghazi terror attack. The aides were Philippe Reines, widely described as Clinton’s principal gate-keeper, and Cheryl Mills, who has been at Clinton's side for decades. The emails show that while receiving updates about the assault as it happened,

The insider-account of the damaging divisions between the White House and the State Department comes as diplomats around the world wait to see if John Kerry, the new US secretary of state, can persuade Mr Obama to greater engagement on Syria, Egypt and the wider Middle East. Vali Nasr, a university professor who was seconded in 2009 to work with Richard Holbrooke, Mr Obama's special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, records his profound disillusion at how a "Berlin Wall" of domestic-focused advisers was erected to protect Mr Obama. "The president had a truly disturbing habit of funnelling major foreign policy...

The inescapable impression that the administration is at war with itself over Obama’s strategy to combat ISIS in Iraq and Syria has grown difficult to ignore and impossible to paper over. The most recent example of this phenomenon came when President Barack Obama decided to devote a significant portion of a speech at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida on Wednesday to repeating his assurances that American troops returning to the Middle East would not “have a combat mission.” His insistence came just one day after Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey told members of the Senate that he would...

Two-thirds of veterans (66%) disapprove of the job Pres. Obama is doing, according to a new survey by Concerned Veterans for America (CVA). Likewise, 68% say the country is “on the wrong track.” […] About three-fourths (73%) of those polled agree with former Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen that the national debt is “the greatest threat to our national security.” …

The leaders of the State Department’s Benghazi probe defended their inquiry into the 2012 attack, but they acknowledged to Congress on Thursday that their mission was limited in scope and faced questions over why they gave Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton an advance look at their findings. Retired Adm. Mike Mullen, vice chairman of the accountability review board, also acknowledged that he had warned Mrs. Clinton’s chief of staff not to send a particular official to Congress because he thought “she would be a weak witness” who might have hurt the State Department’s stance. Republicans said those moves called...

Benghazi-gate: Democrats couldn't share the grief of a mom who was lied to in front of her son's casket or a grieving father who wonders why the general who could have mounted a rescue was relieved of his post. It was a shameful spectacle all around, starting with bizarre testimony by the authors of the State Department's Accountability Review Board (ARB) report and including real tears in a scandal branded as "phony" by the Obama administration and the repetition of lies agreed upon. The scene was Thursday's hearing on the Benghazi terrorist attack before Rep. Darrell Issa's House Oversight Committee....

Thomas Pickering - the former UN ambassador who along with former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Adm. Mike Mullen prepared the Accountability Review Board report on the State Department's handling of the Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi, Libya - says he didn't think it was necessary to interview former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton "because in fact we knew where the responsibility rested." BOB SCHIEFFER: And good morning again. Ambassador Thomas Pickering is the one who led the State Department's investigation into how those Benghazi attacks where handled. Mr. Ambassador, you and I have known one another as you had...

May 2, 2013 State Department's Benghazi review panel under investigation, Fox News confirms James Rosen The State Department's Office of Inspector General is investigating the special internal panel that probed the Benghazi terror attack for the State Department, Fox News has confirmed. The IG's office is said by well-placed sources to be seeking to determine whether the Accountability Review Board, or ARB -- led by former U.N. Ambassador Thomas Pickering and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen -- failed to interview key witnesses who had asked to provide their accounts of the Benghazi attacks to...

What Is Samantha Power Thinking?The charismatic Obama adviser believes that stopping "genocide" is the United States' top foreign-policy priority. On March 18, President Obama explained his decision to mobilize the United States military for international intervention in Libya. “Left unchecked,” he said, “we have every reason to believe that Qaddafi would commit atrocities against his people. Many thousands could die. A humanitarian crisis would ensue. The entire region could be destabilized, endangering many of our allies and partners.” (As if it hasn’t been already?) That last sentence was a Realpolitik, national-interest justification for the U.S. intervention. But it rang hollow....

Benghazi report could damage Clinton’s legacy at State Dept.By Julian Pecquet - 12/19/12 05:30 AM ET The Benghazi report released Tuesday night bemoans “systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies” in Hillary Clinton's State Department that could come back to haunt her should she run for president in 2016. Clinton remains one of the nation's most popular politicians and has worked tirelessly to improve America's image abroad following President George W. Bush's tenure. The independent review of the Sept. 11 attack, however, tarnishes that legacy by faulting the department for failing to put in place a coordinated approach for handling...

And so the reckoning begins. Only hours after a special task force concluded on Wednesday that “systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies” may have contributed to the deaths of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in Benghazi, Libya, the State Department’s security chief resigned and three other officials were relieved of their duties. What was lacking in the report, however, was any sense of who was responsible farther up the chain. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Accountability Review Board—chaired by retired Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering and vice chaired by another national-security heavyweight, former Joint Chiefs Chairman Michael...

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won't testify to Congress next week on Benghazi, after fainting and suffering a concussion Saturday and due to her ongoing stomach ailment. "While suffering from a stomach virus, Secretary Clinton became dehydrated and fainted, sustaining a concussion," Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Philippe Reines said in a statement. "She has been recovering at home and will continue to be monitored regularly by her doctors. At their recommendation, she will continue to work from home next week, staying in regular contact with Department and other officials. She is looking forward to being back in the office...

Yessir, Mr. Issa. We'll get right on that investigation lickety-split. Too bad we won't have our report for you until after the November election. Josh Rogin: "I appreciate that you and your committee are deeply interested in finding out what happened leading up to and during the attacks in Benghazi, and are looking for ways to prevent it from happening again. I share that commitment," Clinton wrote in the letter, obtained by The Cable. "Nobody will hold this department more accountable than we hold ourselves -- we served with Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty, and Tyrone Woods." Clinton said...

Storm gathers over Pakistan "coup" memo Anita Joshua Pakistan's Ambassador to the U.S. Husain Haqqani is reported to have tendered his resignation on Wednesday (American time) following allegations that he had submitted a memo on behalf of President Asif Ali Zardari to former U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen to pre-empt a possible coup in the wake of the May 2 operation against al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden. However, several hours after news broke of the resignation offer made during the night (Pakistani time), there was no word from the Government on whether it had been accepted or not....

WASHINGTON — When the U.S. State Department announced this week that it finally is going to designate the Haqqani network as a foreign terrorist organization, it was a nonevent for most of our countrymen. That's because few Americans know how deadly the organization is. For that we can thank those at Foggy Bottom who are wedded to the naive hope of a near-term "diplomatic breakthrough" in Afghanistan. Couple that misguided belief with the Obama administration's self-deception that the radical Islamic jihad against the West ended with the demise of Osama bin Laden and it's understandable why the Haqqani network...