News
Saturday, September 04, 2010
Sustained international help needed for Pak flood recovery: Mullen
* Top US commander says news coverage cannot possibly convey massive scale of disaster
WASHINGTON: US Joint of Chiefs of Staff Committee Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen, on Friday said he was taken aback by the scale of the flooding and that there was a need for sustained international help in the recovery effort ahead.
Mullen, who had a first-hand glimpse of unprecedented flooding devastation in Pakistan this week, said news coverage could not possibly convey the massive scale of the disaster.
“The pictures (and) reporting just do not capture it,” he said at the conclusion of his visit to Pakistan. Mullen toured the flood-stricken areas with army chief General Ashfaq Kayani.
Along with his own observations of the flooded areas, he added that a briefing slide Kayani had showed him helped him understand the disaster’s magnitude.
“It said that effectively, it is like flooding the entire East Coast of the US,” Mullen said.
“I think it is going to take a considerable amount of time to recover from that,” he told reporters during a flight from Islamabad to Kabul.
According to the Pentagon, Mullen said Kayani asked for satellite imagery taken before the flood began so current images and those taken after the waters recede could be put together in a database for comparison.
The US military leader was informed that 70,000 members of the Pakistani military were engaged in the flood response effort, and no reserve call-up had been necessary.
When Mullen asked during his visit whether terrorist activity had picked up with the military focusing so much attention on the floods, he was told that no significant outbreak of terrorism had taken place.
He was also told that there was “not much” support from the charitable organisation fronts of extremist organisations. The admiral was told that while those organisations were doing a pretty good job of strategic communications, they had not made much of an impact. app
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk