US military chief Admiral Mike Mullen said Thursday that Pakistan needed space to sort out internal problems and that it would be dangerous for the United States to abandon the troubled war partner. Mullen said that Pakistan has been going through "a great deal of introspection" in the month since US forces killed the world's most wanted man Osama bin Laden in a secret raid near the country's top military academy.
"I think we need to give them a little time and space to do that. And that makes all the sense in the world to me," Mullen told a breakfast with reporters. "I think the worst thing we could do would be cut them off," he said. If the United States distanced itself from Pakistan, "10 years from now, 20 years from now, we go back and it's much more intense and it's much more dangerous," he said.