Recalibrating an admiral

Eric Schmitt has an article in The New York Times about Pakistan and Admiral Mullen:

The White House and State Department sought to temper remarks by the nation’s top military officer last week that the insurgents who attacked the American Embassy in Afghanistan this month were “a veritable arm” of Pakistan’s spy agency. The comments by Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were the first to directly link the spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, with an assault on the United States, and they ignited a diplomatic furor with Pakistan’s civilian and military leaders, who have denied the accusation.
Asked whether he agreed that the Haqqani network, the militant group blamed for the embassy attack, was “a veritable arm” of the ISI, Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, told reporters, “It’s not language I would use.” He pivoted quickly to say the Obama administration is united in its assessment that “links” exist between the Haqqani network and the ISI, “and that Pakistan needs to take action to address that”.
Carney’s comments, echoed by State Department and other administration officials, seemed aimed at supporting Admiral Mullen’s tough comments up to a point, while giving Pakistan a small window to save face.
With American lawmakers considering legislation that would condition billions of dollars in aid to Pakistan on that country’s cooperation in fighting the Haqqani network and other terror groups associated with al-Qaeda, the administration is trying to calibrate a response that prods Pakistan to act more aggressively against the Haqqani network but does not rupture already frayed relations.
President Obama’s top national security advisers met to discuss familiar options— including unilateral strikes and a suspension of security assistance— intended to get Pakistan to fight militants more effectively. So far, the carrots and sticks have had little impact, American officials acknowledged.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said that the administration was completing “the final formal review” to designate the Haqqani network a terrorist organization, having already designated several of its leaders. She discussed the matter with Pakistan’s foreign minister, Hina Rabbani Khar, when the United Nations General Assembly met last week, Clinton said at the State Department. “We discussed the urgency, in the wake of the attack on our embassy in Kabul and on the NATO ISAF headquarters, for us to confront the threat posed by the Haqqani network,” she said, referring to the International Security Assistance Force.
Clinton, echoing private statements by American diplomats, acknowledged the strain that the attack and its links to Pakistani intelligence had caused, but she also emphasized the need for Pakistan to address what has become a threat to its own society. She added that the United States remained committed to attacking any threats, “in particular against those who have taken up safe havens inside Pakistan”, suggesting a willingness to act on its own. But she emphasized previous Pakistani efforts against al-Qaeda and other extremists. “And we’re going to continue to work with our Pakistani counterparts to try to root them out and prevent them from attacking Pakistanis, Americans, Afghanis, or anyone else,” she said in an appearance with Egypt’s foreign minister.
In remarks to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Admiral Mullen went further than any other American official in blaming the ISI for undermining the United States-led effort in Afghanistan. However, two administration officials said he had overstated the precision of evidence linking the ISI to the recent attacks, and some Pakistan specialists said the ISI did not control the Haqqani network as tightly as the admiral had stated.
A spokesman for Admiral Mullen, Captain John Kirby, said that the admiral stood by his remarks.
Two senior military officials said that, while there was no evidence that the ISI had directed or orchestrated the attack against the United States Embassy in Kabul, there was evidence that ISI officers had urged and supported the Haqqani fighters to carry out strikes against those kinds of Western targets. Pakistani military officials have denied this.

Rico says that Mullen, as usual, spoke the truth and nobody liked it..