New chief troubled by Iraq. Forces stretched thin, nation distracted, says Joint Chiefs chairman

WASHINGTON - Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is troubled by the Iraq war. He says it has become such a consuming focus of U.S. attention that it might be overstretching the military and distracting the nation from other threats.

When he steps into his office at the Pentagon today, replacing Marine Gen. Peter Pace as the senior military adviser to the president and the secretary of defense, Mullen will be on record as already having expressed his war worries with unusual candor.

"I understand the frustration over the war. I share it," he said July 31 during his Senate confirmation hearing. It weighs heavily on the minds of people in the United States, he said, and "it weighs heavily on mine."