Difficult to put timetable on Kadhafi endgame: US Mullen

US Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen
© AFP/POOL Asmaa Waguih

CAIRO (AFP) – The top US uniformed commander Admiral Michael Mullen said Wednesday that it is difficult to say how long it will take for Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi to quit office even though he “has to leave”.

“It’s the US position that Kadhafi has to leave and it is a challenge for anybody to put a timetable to that,” the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff told a news conference on a visit to Cairo.

He was responding to a question on whether NATO would end its campaign with Kadhafi staying in power.

“From a military perspective, everything I see indicates a continued drum beat to continue to raise the pressure, if you will, to force Kadhafi to depart.

“In that regard, certainly we’d like to see this end as soon as possible,” he said.

NATO, now in its third month of airstrikes against regime targets, is focusing on protecting civilians and “on a way to see Kadhafi out of the door,” he said, ruling out any involvement by US ground troops in the effort.

He conceded that so far the campaign had made slow progress.

“What I have seen is what I would call very slow progress — more and more individuals from his regime who are defecting, some of whom who are from the military.”

NATO’s leadership pressed allies on Wednesday to contribute more to the campaign to dislodge Kadhafi.

After a meeting in Brussels, alliance defence ministers issued a joint statement pledging their determination to continue the mission “for as long as necessary.”

They said they were “committed to providing the necessary means and maximum operational flexibility within our mandate to sustain these efforts and welcome additional contributions to our common efforts.”

With only half of the 28 NATO countries taking part in the mission, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and British Defence Secretary Liam Fox called on member states to step up their participation.

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