Former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen tells NBC that he's worried the killing of terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden will now be "spun into election politics" this "political season."
"Well, I worry about it, just because it's the political season," Mullen says. "And from my perspective, the president's support, the decision that he made, and obviously, the result stand alone in terms of the kind of call presidents have to make and he made it. I do worry a great deal that this time of year that somehow this gets spun into election politics. I can assure you that those individuals who risk their lives--the last thing in the world that they want is to be spun into that. So I'm hoping that that doesn't happen."
Mullen's comments come on the same day President Obama reiterated his claim that his election rival, Republican Mitt Romney, would not have made the decision to kill bin Laden, if he were president of the United States at the time.
Navy SEALS killed bin Laden in a Pakistan safe house exactly one year ago.
Earlier this week, Keep America Safe released the following ad, criticizing President Obama for not taking his military commanders' advice and for prematurely withdrawing from Afghanistan:
Here’s a startling excerpt from the prepared testimony of Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who is testifying this morning in front of the House Armed Services Committee: “I would prefer not to discuss the specifics of the private advice I rendered with respect to these decisions. As I said, I support them. What I can tell you is, the President’s decisions are more aggressive and incur more risk than I was originally prepared to accept.”
Here is Benjamin Netanyahu on Fox News with Chris Wallace:
when the president [of the United States] says that he's determined to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons and that all options are on the table, I think that's the right statement of policy. ...the president's position that all options are on the table might actually have the only real effect on Iran...—if they think it's true.
Diane Feinstein, freshly back from a trip to Asia, was pressing the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, yesterday about the need for engagement with China: “I think that the most important thing we can do right now is establish some military-to-military contact," she said to him in a defense appropriation hearing.
In a town hall on the campus of the University of West Virginia, a young airman asked Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen to respond to a “rumor.” If Israel decided to attack Iran, the speculation went, those jet would need to fly through Iraqi airspace to reach their targets. That airspace is considered a “no-fly” zone by the American military. So might U.S. troops shoot down the Israeli jets, the airmen asked the chairman, if they breached that airspace?
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen told a forum at Columbia University yesterday, "Iran getting a nuclear weapon would be incredibly destabilizing. Attacking them would also create the same kind of outcome...In an area that's so unstable right now, we just don't need more of that."
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