Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/adm-mullen-iraq-war-affects-deployment-in-afghanistan Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, whose words have been parsed over the past weeks as the presidential campaign focuses on foreign policy, discusses the success of the surge and his opinion that troops would have to be withdrawn from Iraq before added to Afghanistan in a significant way. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. JIM LEHRER: And to our Newsmaker interview with Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.Admiral, welcome.ADM. MIKE MULLEN, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff: Thank you, Jim. It's good to be here. JIM LEHRER: First on what the two presidential candidates had to say today. Do you agree with Senator McCain that setting a date for withdrawal would endanger progress in Iraq? ADM. MIKE MULLEN: I think it's really important to continue to base our judgments on conditions on the ground. I was just over there two weeks ago myself with all the commanders, and essentially that's a message that they give to me and it allowed me, actually, to assess what's going on.And I actually found the security remarkably improved from my expectations. I knew it was better. And we have been able to withdraw these five brigades of the surge, from the surge. And we've done it based on conditions on the ground.And right now, the mission I have from the current commander-in-chief is to continue to evaluate that. And if we are able to sustain this kind of improvement in security, I'd have expectations that this fall I'd be able to make recommendations to President Bush that we can continue that withdrawal. JIM LEHRER: Major withdrawals in the fall? ADM. MIKE MULLEN: Well, I think, again, it would depend on how conditions continue to evolve. And we're trying to get to a point where we continuously assess this.And, in fact, when you talk with General Petraeus or General Dempsey down at the Central Command and others on the ground, I mean, it's a constant assessment. And there's battlefield geometry, where we move troops around based on the conditions. And so to say that it would be specifically major, it's just too soon to say. JIM LEHRER: Senator Obama uses terms like "timetable." President Bush uses terms like "time horizon." What do you use? What do you military folks use? ADM. MIKE MULLEN: Well, again, in my current job, my mission is to continue to evaluate conditions and to give my best advice to President Bush, and I'll continue to do that.I think having a discussion about time horizons and having the aspirations associated with that kind of goal means, more than anything else, that we are committed to bringing our troops home. We all want that to happen. And at some point in time, it will.