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Friday, September 04, 2009 WASHINGTON: US Chairman Joint Chief of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen has said US wants much better ties with Pakistan while US is facing difficult times in Afghanistan. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is taking issue with any notion that the war in Afghanistan "is slipping through the administration's fingers."Meeting with reporters at the Pentagon Thursday, Gates and Mullen both acknowledged growing impatience with the war. But he said that must be expected, given that the United States has had a presence there for eight years.Gates said he believes "it's important for us to be able to show over the months to come" that President Barack Obama's new strategy for both Afghanistan and Pakistan is succeeding. Obama had said the goal is to defeat and dismantle the al-Qaida terrorist network and its allies.He said any request for additional U.S. troops or funds for the war in Afghanistan would only come after officials study a new assess...

Saturday, August 29, 2009 WASHINGTON: The U.S. military can't win credibility in the Muslim world through new public relations strategies and instead must pursue actions that build trust, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said.Admiral Mike Mullen, the top U.S. military officer, took aim at burgeoning "strategic communication" efforts inside the armed forces in which officials plan how to present their operations and ideas to the public."We need to worry a lot less about how to communicate our actions and much more about what our actions communicate," Mullen said in an article for Joint Force Quarterly, a U.S. military journal, released by his office on Friday.As they fight insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. military officers have attached increasing importance to communications efforts.Top officials including Defense Secretary Robert Gates have lamented that a country which, leads the world in marketing and media has been out-communicated by al ...

Sunday, August 23, 2009 WASHINGTON: Nearly eight years after the attacks of September 11, 2001, Al-Qaeda remains "very capable" of attacking the United States, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen said Sunday.Al-Qaeda is "still very capable, very focused on it," Mullen said on a US TV channel."They also are able to both train and support and finance, and so that capability is still significant," he said.Mullen, the top US military officer, added that the US military is "very focused on making sure that it doesn't happen again," referring to the potential for another such attack on US soil.Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the 9/11 attacks, in which extremists hijacked jetliners, struck the World Trade Center and Pentagon and killed some 3,000 people.

Sunday, August 23, 2009 WASHINGTON: The situation in Afghanistan is "serious and deteriorating," Washington's top military officer said on Sunday."I think it is serious and it is deteriorating, and I've said that over the past couple of years, that the Taliban insurgency has gotten better, more sophisticated in their tactics," Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a US news channel.

WASHINGTON: A top US military official said that al Qaeda and the Taliban leadership are trying to gain access to nuclear weapons."Terrorist organisations, al Qaeda in particular, have been very open and direct about their desire to get a nuclear device and continue to terrorise people in accordance with their strategic approach, killing as many Americans and westerners as they possibly can with a device like that," said Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen. "So it is a very dangerous time. Those are very dangerous weapons. And we would like to contain them and see them over time reduced as much as possible," Mullen said in his address to the Junior Statesman Summer School Programme. "It becomes all the more important to make sure no new countries are able to acquire it," he said.

Thursday, July 16, 2009, LONDON: The US military chief warned Thursday that Taliban militants in Afghanistan have grown more violent and better organised in recent years, and troops face "very difficult fighting" ahead. The US military faced a crucial 18-month battle to help stabilise the country for the Afghan people and stem a three-year slide in security, said Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Mullen said it was unclear how long it would take to improve the security situation, but the latest phase of the operation in southern Helmand province was only "just beginning," in an interview with the a tv channel. He also said ultimately it would be the Afghan people themselves who would help defeat the insurgency.

Wednesday, July 08, 2009 WASHINGTON: The top U.S. military officer says a military strike to thwart Iran's nuclear development is an option no one should take. Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen says the possibility of a military strike remains on the table. But he told a Washington audience Tuesday that he worries about what Iran would do if attacked.He says a strike would be a threat to stability in the Middle East. He urged caution even though, as he put it, the clock is ticking.Mullen says Iran could have nuclear weapons capability in one to three years.He did not directly address remarks by Vice President Joe Biden, who suggested Sunday that the Obama administration would not stand in the way if Israel attacked Iran's nuclear facilities.