What Is This World Coming To?

The United States is more vulnerable to attack in the period between now and the inauguration of a new president in January, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said last week.

Adm. Mike Mullen told soldiers at Fort Lewis, Washington June 24 that he has set up a transition team to be ready for the next administration.

“I have, in my current job, stood up a transition team because this is a great time of transition,” Mullen said. “A time of transition is very, very challenging for any institution much less an entire country. And in that time of transition, it’s my belief that we as a country will be more vulnerable.”

As a result he is moving very carefully “in taking that vulnerability into consideration,” Mullen said.

“So there’s a lot of planning going on right now where I like to look at both the prevention and the response should something happen,” he said, noting that the period of vulnerability begins in the fall and will extend through the first six months of the administration in 2009.

The Pentagon and other national security agencies are all on alert during the period, he said.

Mullen said during recent travels in Asia and Europe leaders he met expressed that the next election is “significant.”

“There is certainly the full range of possibilities that our policies change on January 20th or they don’t,” he said.