6/2/2023 0 Comments Mark mullen rarify![]() Holbrooke, the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, who had been a target of negative comments from the McChrystal team. But that takes time to see.”Īdmiral Mullen also had an encounter with another senior member of the administration’s national security team the sort of meeting possible only in the rarified atmosphere of high-level government travel when he crossed paths in Brussels with Richard A. “In the south, we are taking the fight to them. “I don’t think we’ve regained the initiative yet, but we’ve arrested their initiative,” he said. Sedwell offered an assessment of optimism for the effort now underway, but one tempered by an acknowledgement of past missteps in the fight against the insurgency. To aggressively press that agenda of enhanced civilian-military cooperation, Admiral Mullen met with the American ambassador in Kabul, Karl Eikenberry, a retired three-star general who had well-publicized disputes with General McChrystal, as well as with Mark Sedwell, the British diplomat who serves as NATO’s senior civilian representative here. “If we don’t make this happen, we are going to fail.”Īnd he bluntly warned, “We do not have the luxury of time.” “That is a mandate for the leadership,” Admiral Mullen told gatherings of military officers and American embassy personnel. Obama himself acknowledged in a textured statement delivered when he relieved General McChrystal of command, the entire national security team civilian and military must now come together and work in greater accord. And the war effort is beset by rising violence and a frustratingly slow pace of political and economic progress required to attract a war-weary population.Īdmiral Mullen’s agenda included private talks with the most senior level of the Afghan leadership, including President Hamid Karzai and Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak.īut as Mr. McChrystal, was fired by President Obama this week following publication of comments by the general and his staff that disparaged senior civilian officials. And we are very much committed to it.”Īdmiral Mullen arrived in the Afghan capital at a tumultuous moment: The allied commander, Gen. ![]() Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “The leadership has changed, but the policy hasn’t changed,” said Adm. KABUL With the American-led military mission temporarily a ship without a captain, the nation’s top admiral spent Saturday in this land-locked war zone reassuring Afghan leaders and allied troops that Washington will not pause in pressing forward its strategy one that will require enhanced cooperation between civilian and military officials.
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