The McMullen conversion

Sara Carter:

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen walked through the streets of Samarra toward the Golden Mosque, where the sounds of prayer have replaced those of explosions and shooting.

The admiral, recruited by the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis in 1964 to play basketball, towered over a crowd of young children in ragged clothing who followed him. Forty years after beginning his military career, he is now charged with overseeing 2.2 million troops and two very different theaters of war.

"We need to know how to look through the eyes of the people," he told The Washington Times later aboard Air Force II during one of several interviews on a recent a nine-day trip to Germany, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo and Pakistan. "I don't think any plan is to succeed in Iraq or Afghanistan unless we engage with the people, unless we understand who they are and what they need."

In Iraq, that understanding has come late. A U.S. decision to invade in 2003 with a relatively small force and inadequate planning for a post-Saddam Hussein administration created chaos and led to an insurgency and sectarian violence. In Samarra, the Golden Mosque, a revered Shi'ite Muslim shrine, was attacked by Sunni insurgents in 2006 and then bombed by al Qaeda operatives in 2007.

Now, it is being rebuilt and has become a symbol of fragile progress.

Adm. Mullen said he wanted the people of Samarra to know they had not and would not be forgotten. He squinted as he looked at the blue and golden tiles that reflected off the shrine and listened to the prayers that echoed throughout the city.

"He wanted to have his boots on the ground," said Capt. John Kirby, the admiral's spokesman and a colleague for nine years. "He really is a remarkable man that truly cares and never stops learning."

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The article is titled about his "good instincts." Those were missing when he opposed the surge he tried to undercut it after it was implemented. If it were not for President Bush standing up for Gen. Petraeus, McMullen and others of the chiefs would have retreated from Iraq.