Transcript: Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen

ABC'S "THIS WEEK WITH GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS" MAY 24, 2009 SPEAKERS: GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, HOST ADM. MIKE MULLEN (USN), CHAIRMAN, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

STEPHANOPOULOS (voice-over): Good morning, and welcome to THIS WEEK. On this Memorial Day weekend, our exclusive headliner, the military's top man.

MULLEN: I have actually been supportive of closing Guantanamo.

They want Afghanistan back. We can't let them or their al Qaeda cohorts have it.

That Iran getting a nuclear weapon is calamitous for the region and for the world.

STEPHANOPOULOS: The chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mike Mullen, only on THIS WEEK.

(ABC News Photo Illustration)

Then...

DICK CHENEY, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT: In the fight against terrorism, there is no middle ground and half measures keep you half exposed.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: We must leave these methods where they belong, in the past. They are not who we are. And they are not America.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Who won the great debate? Who is next for the Supreme Court? That and the rest of the week's politics on our roundtable with George Will, Donna Brazile, David Brooks of The New York Times, and E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post.

And as always, the "Sunday Funnies."

JAY LENO, HOST, "THE TONIGHT SHOW": Hey, President Obama has found a way to quickly close Guantanamo Bay. He's going to turn it into a Pontiac dealership. Yes.

(LAUGHTER)

ANNOUNCER: From the heart of the nation's capital, THIS WEEK with ABC News chief Washington correspondent George Stephanopoulos, live from the Newseum on Pennsylvania Avenue.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Hello, again, I hope you're enjoying this Memorial Day weekend. We're going to begin today with the president's top military adviser, Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Welcome to THIS WEEK.

MULLEN: Thank you, George.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And we have a lot to cover today, but I want to begin with the debate that really consumed Washington this week. Guantanamo Bay, whether to close it, how to close it, what to do with the detainees. Weigh in from the perspective of the U.S. military.

MULLEN: Well, I've advocating for a long time now that it needs to be closed. President Obama made a decision very early after his Inauguration to do that by next January. And we're all working very hard to meet that deadline.

It focuses on very difficult issues of what you do with the detainees who are there. There are some really bad people there. And so figuring out how we're going to keep them where they need to be, keep them off the battlefield, as well as close Gitmo itself is a real challenge.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let's talk about keeping them off the battlefield, because a report -- a Pentagon report was released this week -- or leaked this week that said about 14 percent of the Guantanamo detainees have gone back to the battlefield.

I'm trying to puzzle that out. Does that mean it was a mistake to let them go? Or that somehow they were radicalized inside Guantanamo? That something happened to them there?

MULLEN: Well, there has been an increasing number of those who have returned to the battlefield over the last year or two. There has been hundreds and hundreds who have actually been released both from Guantanamo over time as well as other detention facilities in Iraq and in Afghanistan.

And I think individuals make their best judgment about where they are. And certainly from a military perspective, my advice is to focus heavily on making sure that these individuals don't return.

It has gone up in recent weeks -- or I'm sorry, in recent months, from a single digit number of 5 or 6 percent to the low teens, as far as my understanding of those who have returned.

STEPHANOPOULOS: For those detainees that have to come to the United States eventually, if indeed they do, would the best option be for them to be held in military prisons here in the United States?

MULLEN: We're working hard now to figure out what the options are and what the best one would be. And that really is a decision the president is going to have to make, certainly in meeting this deadline of what we do.

But I just want to reemphasize how -- you know, the challenge associated with that, the need to really keep the bad guys off the battlefield, and to properly detain these individuals as determined in this process.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But that is everybody's big concern, at least it was expressed in the Congress this week that somehow detainees would come to the United States and they would pose a danger. And the FBI director, Robert Mueller, said this week they could pose a risk.

MULLEN: Sure. I listened to all of that and I thought Secretary Gates also captured it well. We have terrorists in jail right now, have had for some time. They're in supermax prisons. And they don't pose a threat. So that's certainly an option. But again, it's not one for me to decide. STEPHANOPOULOS: The Republican leader of the Senate was quoted in The New York Times today saying there's actually a very slim possibility now that the Congress will allow Guantanamo to close.

If he's right, and Guantanamo doesn't close, what would that mean for your military mission?

MULLEN: Well, the concern I've had about Guantanamo in these wars is it has been a symbol, and one which has been a recruiting symbol for those extremists and jihadists who would fight us. So and I think that centers -- you know, that's the heart of the concern for Guantanamo's continued existence, in which I spoke to a few years ago, the need to close it.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You know, former Vice President Cheney took on that debate this week. He was speaking about Guantanamo, but also specifically the enhanced interrogation techniques, and he took on this issue of what he called the recruitment tool mantra. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHENEY: This recruitment tool theory has become something of a mantra lately, including from the president himself. And after a familiar fashion, it excuses the violent and blames America for the evil that others do. It's another version of that same old refrain from the left, we brought it on ourselves.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: He's taking issue with your judgment.

MULLEN: Well, again, it's my judgment that it has had an impact. And it's time to move on. And the difficulty of doing that is captured in the complexity of the issues. But I think we need to.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me move on to the issue of Iran. You said that Iran is on a path to building nuclear weapons. But the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate concluded with a high degree of confidence that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons programs. So do you believe that intelligence estimate is outdated? Is it no longer accurate?

MULLEN: Well, I believe then and I still believe that Iran's strategic objective is to achieve nuclear weapons, and that that path continues. Their leadership is committed to it. They conducted a missile test this last week that was successful, which continues to improve their missile delivery system and capability. Their intent seems very clear to me, and I'm one who believes if they achieve that objective, that it is incredibly destabilizing for the region. And I think eventually for the world.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You said it's their intent. But do you believe they've restarted their actual nuclear weapons program?

MULLEN: I haven't seen -- or I wouldn't speak to any details about what they are doing with respect to that. Although, I remain concerned that while intelligence estimates focus on what we know, I'm concerned about what Iran might be doing that we don't know.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me also press the question of their strategic intent. "Newsweek" has a cover story out. Let me show you. It says that everything you think you know about Iran is wrong. And one of the points that Fareed Zakaria makes in "Newsweek" is he points out on several occasions over the last several years, Iran's leaders have said they're not interested in having nuclear weapons. They have said that nuclear weapons are immoral. The Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei actually issued a fatwah saying that these weapons are, indeed, immoral.

And I guess, it's possible they could just be lying. But it does seem odd that a country that the Islamic Republic that bases its legitimacy on being a guardian of Islam that would develop weapons that it considers immoral. That would seem to undercut their own legitimacy.

MULLEN: Well, I think that speaks to the importance of the dialogue that President Obama has stated he wants to initiate and to really wring out, whether that's how the Supreme Leader feels. Certainly from what I've seen, Iran on a path to developing nuclear weapons.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So you don't believe it? That they don't want nuclear weapons.

MULLEN: At this point no.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And the chief of staff to Israel's defense minister, General Michael Herzog, has said that Iran could actually have its first nuclear weapon by the end of 2010 or the beginning of 2011. Do you agree with that?

MULLEN: Well, I think you make certain assumptions about what they can do. Most of us believe that it's one to three years, depending on assumptions about where they are right now. But they are moving closer, clearly, and they continue to do that. And if you believe their strategic intent, as I do, and as certainly my Israeli counterpart does, that's the principle concern.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And you just said that you believe that a nuclear Iran would be calamitous for the region. But last year, Sy Hersh in the "New Yorker" reported that you pushed back very hard against any notion of a military strike during President Bush's administration. And you've spoken publicly about the unintended consequences of a military strike by Israel. So what worries you more? A nuclear Iran or war with Iran?

MULLEN: Well, they both worry me a lot. And I think the unintended consequences of a strike against Iran right now would be incredibly serious. As well as the unintended consequences of their achieving a nuclear weapon.

And so that's why this engagement in dialogue is so important. I think we should do that with all options on the table. As we approach them.

And so that leaves a pretty narrow space in which to achieve a successful dialogue and a successful outcome, which from my perspective means they don't end up with nuclear weapons.

STEPHANOPOULOS: They don't end up with nuclear weapons, but could they have as Japan does a full nuclear fuel cycle program that's fully inspected?

MULLEN: I think that's certainly a possibility and this isn't, at least, from my perspective, from the military perspective, this isn't about them having the ability to produce nuclear power. It's about their desire and their goal to have a nuclear weapon.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Finally, if it comes to this, do you believe it's possible to take out Iran's program, militarily at an acceptable cost?

MULLEN: I won't speculate on what we can and can't do. Again, I put that in the category of my very strong preference is to not be put in a position where we -- where someone -- where Iran is struck in terms of taking out its nuclear capability.

STEPHANOPOULOS: OK. Let me move to Iraq then. U.S. combat forces are scheduled to complete their pullout from Iraqi cities by June 30th. But in recent weeks, we've seen an uptick again in the violence. Does that rise in violence mean that the deadline for pulling American forces out of the cities might not be met?

MULLEN: Oh, I think we're still very much on a track in terms of pulling the forces out of the cities, which is the end of next month. We're on track to decrease the number of troops down to 35,000 to 50,000 in August of 2010.

We've had an uptick in violence, but the overall violence levels are at the 2003 levels. It's still fragile. There's an awful lot of political positioning and political debate that's going on right now, and I think that in great part becomes the essence of how Iraq moves forward.

I'm actually positive about what the Iraqi security forces have done, their army and their police in terms of providing for their own security. They've improved dramatically.

So the path, I think, is still the right path. These ticks, upticks in violence are going to occur. We said that going in, even into -- as we talked about coming down in force. So we just have to, we have to constantly keep an eye on that.

Al Qaida is still active. They're not gone. They're very much...

STEPHANOPOULOS: Al Qaida in Iraq.

MULLEN: Al Qaida in Iraq is very much diminished, but they still have potential to create these kinds of incidents.