“Certainly there are possibilities there,” Adm. Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in an interview that aired Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union. But Mullen added, “I haven’t seen any indications of that in recent days. The seven missiles which the leadership [of North Korea] fired yesterday basically into the sea – similar to what they did in 2006 – those were violations of United Nations Security Council resolutions.”

“They continue to thumb their nose at the international community,” Mullen added. “And I think the international community – which has been bound very tightly together to include Russia and China — and putting additional pressure on North Korea that needs to continue and those sanctions need to be enforced.”

On Iraq, Adm. Mullen rejected the suggestion that Iraqis celebrating in the streets earlier this week — as the U.S. met a deadline to pull out of major cities — was a sign that citizens of the war-torn country did not appreciate American sacrifices to establish peace and stability in the country.

Related: History will have to make a judgment on Iraq, says Powell

“I know from my engagement with Prime Minister Maliki as well as the rest of the political and military leadership in Iraq, they’re very appreciative of everything that we have done,” Mullen told CNN Chief National Correspondent John King.

Updated: 4:40 p.m.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The Obama administration is committed to providing enough additional troops in Afghanistan, one of President Obama’s senior military advisers says.

In an interview that aired Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union, Admiral Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that he, Obama, and retired Gen. Jim Jones, Obama’s National Security Adviser are all in agreement.

“Gen. Jones, and I, and the president, are all on the same page in terms of what we have to do now,” Mullen told CNN Chief National Correspondent John King. “President Obama has committed these troops. They’re arriving as we speak and will through the rest of this year.”

Mullen added that Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the new U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, is conducting a 60-day assessment to determine whether he has sufficient boots on the ground or whether he needs more troops on top of the additional 21,000 the Obama administration recently authorized.

Mullen also expressed optimism about the situation in Iraq where U.S. troops recently pulled back from Iraq’s major cities under an agreement signed by former President George W. Bush.

“I’m really encouraged based on what I see,” Mullen said.

Mullen added that he thought the military was on track to complete a withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of 2011, also under the terms of an agreement with Iraq’s government.

Updated: 3:21 p.m.

The vice president visited with U.S. troops during his recent visit to Iraq — including with his son, Army Capt. Beau Biden, pictured here with the vice president.

(CNN) — The U.S. government intends to have all its troops out of Iraq by the end of 2011, and it's up to the Iraqis to make that timetable work, Vice President Joe Biden said.

In an interview with ABC News' "This Week" during his trip to Iraq that ended Sunday, Biden said a collapse by Iraq into civil war once U.S. troops depart would be "a tragic outcome."

President Barack Obama remains committed to withdrawing combat troops by the end of August 2010 and all U.S. forces out by the end of 2011, he said.

"That is our intention," Biden said, noting that Iraqi elections scheduled for early 2010 would offer the nation an opportunity for a major step forward.

"It is our expectation that election will come out peacefully," he said.

On another issue, Biden refused to speculate on what the United States would do if Israel decided to attack Iran's nuclear facilities.
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“A dictator is gone. A despicable regime is gone,” the former Secretary of State under George W. Bush said Sunday in an interview that aired on CNN’s State of the Union. “And the Iraqi people have been given a chance to have a representative form of government, living in peace with its neighbors. We’ll have to see what history's judgment of that will be.”

The retired general also gave his take on recent celebrations in Iraq as a deadline passed for U.S. troops withdrew from the country’s major cities.

“I think we should just pocket this,” Powell told CNN Chief National Correspondent John King about celebrations in the streets that heralded the U.S. pull-back.

“They are happy. They have made it clear from the very beginning that they wanted to be free and independent. And they didn’t want to be an occupied nation, which they were when we were there, and now that is starting to change.

“But this is not yet over. . . . it’s now up to the Iraqis to solidify their representative government system and make sure they have the security forces that can handle all of this.”

“They’re now responsible for their own destiny,” Powell added.
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BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — U.S. Vice President Joe Biden arrived in Baghdad Thursday, where he will underscore Washington's commitment to a drawdown of American forces there, the White House said.

Biden is to meet with Iraqi and U.S. military officials and will also speak with troops. He is expected to deliver a speech to troops on Saturday, the Fourth of July, and may visit another city.

The trip comes a couple of days after U.S. combat troops withdrew from urban centers in the country, and left security duties in cities like Baghdad, Mosul, Basra and other communities to Iraqi security forces.

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President Obama touched on the changed situation in Iraq during a White House event Tuesday.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — President Barack Obama said Tuesday that street celebrations in Iraq for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from cities and towns were a testament to the sacrifices of U.S. troops in the country.

In brief remarks at a White House event on technological innovation, Obama said the drawback meant that Iraq's future was now in the hands of its leaders and people.

"The Iraqis are rightly treating this day as a cause for celebration," Obama said, calling the "important milestone" the result of the good work by U.S. forces who first entered Iraq in 2003 and toppled the regime of former leader Saddam Hussein.

Obama warned of tough times ahead in Iraq, noting a bombing earlier Tuesday in Kirkuk that killed at least 30 people. He said the United States would continue to support Iraq as it works to become "a "sovereign, stable, and self-reliant" country.

The U.S. withdrawal was part of an agreement signed last year between former President George W. Bush's administration and the Iraq leadership. The agreement calls for all U.S. forces to leave Iraq by the end of 2011.

The remaining 130,000 U.S. troops in Iraq are now tasked with supporting Iraqi troops and police, and will require Iraqi permission to launch operations in the cities.

Listen: New CNN poll numbers about the U.S. troop withdrawal in Iraq

Iraqi soldiers join in a parade Tuesday in Karbala to mark the withdrawal of U.S. troops from cities and towns.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — Tuesday marked the deadline for American troops to pull out of Iraq's towns and cities — a long-anticipated date that has been met by street festivals in Baghdad.

Celebrations were tempered, however, by fears of renewed violence as insurgents seek to use the date to stage new attacks.

At least 30 people, including women and children, were killed and 45 wounded Tuesday in a bombing in northern Iraq, a local police official said.

The blast took place in a busy commercial area in a predominantly Kurdish part of Kirkuk, destroying 20 shops and houses, the official said. Kirkuk is about 235 miles north of Baghdad.

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Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said Sunday that it's time for us to move out of the cities.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — Tuesday marks the long-anticipated deadline for American troops to pull out of Iraqi towns and cities, but on Monday, there will be no long lines of tanks rolling out of Baghdad or thousands of troops marching out of other cities.

The U.S. military has been gradually pulling its combat troops out of Iraq's population centers for months to meet the deadline agreed to by Washington and Baghdad.

Since January, Americans have handed over or shut down more than 150 bases across the country, leaving U.S. troops in a little more than 300 locations in Iraq that gradually will be handed over to Iraqi control.

Iraqis expressed mixed feelings in the run-up to what the government has been describing as National Sovereignty Day.

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Army Gen. Ray Odierno said he's seen a "constant improvement" in both the security situation and governance in Iraq to prepare for the June 30 deadline for U.S. troops to withdraw from major cities.

"They've been working for this for a long time," Odierno said on CNN's "State of the Union."
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Liz Cheney traveled to the Middle East with her parents in March 2008.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Waterboarding was not used to produce intelligence that linked Iraq to al Qaeda in the run-up to the war in Iraq, former Vice President Dick Cheney's daughter said Sunday.

A former top State Department official, Lawrence Wilkerson, told CNN last week that finding a "smoking gun" linking Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network became the main purpose of the "alternative" interrogation program the Bush administration authorized in 2002 — a program critics say amounted to the torture of prisoners in American custody.

But Liz Cheney, who served in the State Department during the Bush administration, told ABC's "This Week" on Sunday that "Nobody who is talking about this in the press has any knowledge of specific detainee treatment."

"The people that claimed to have been waterboarded in these articles are not any of those people," she said.

Wilkerson, a retired Army colonel, was former Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff during the Bush administration's first term. Since leaving office, he has become an outspoken critic of the war in Iraq.

In an online essay Thursday, he wrote that al Qaeda captive Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi was "waterboarded" by Egyptian intelligence until he told interrogators that Baghdad trained terrorists to use chemical and biological weapons — a key element in the Bush administration's case for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

But Liz Cheney told ABC that Wilkerson "has made a cottage industry of out of fantasies about the vice president," and pointed out that al-Libi was not among the three al Qaeda figures the United States has admitted to subjecting to waterboarding.

And she said the former vice president — who has been publicly defending the interrogation program in recent weeks — "would not substitute his own judgment for the professionals at the CIA."

"I think that it's important for us to have all the facts out — and the first and more important fact is that the vice president has been absolutely clear that he supported this program, this was an important program," she said. "It saved American lives."
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WASHINGTON (CNN) – White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said President Obama is "saddened" by Monday's news that an American soldier shot and killed five of his fellow troops at Camp Liberty in Baghdad.

"The President's heart goes out to the families and friends of all the service members involved in this horrible tragedy," Gibbs said at Monday's White House briefing.

"He was shocked by the news of this incident and will press to ensure that we fully understand what happened at the clinic and that we are doing everything we can to ensure that our men and women in uniform are protected," Gibbs said. "He plans on seeing Secretary Gates this afternoon and will raise this matter then."

The shooting took place at 2 p.m. local (6 a.m. ET) at the U.S. military base. The soldier is now in custody.

Updated 5:15 p.m. With written statement from the president.

President Obama issued the following statement Monday evening about the shootings:

"I was shocked and deeply saddened to hear the news from Camp Victory this morning, and my heart goes out to the families and friends of all the service members involved in this horrible tragedy. I will press to ensure that we fully understand what led to this tragedy, and that we are doing everything we can to ensure that our men and women in uniform are protected as they serve our country so capably and courageously in harm’s way. To begin this process, I met with Secretary Gates this afternoon to get a briefing on the situation."

Related: Soldier kills 5 comrades, officials say

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Saturday deplored the recent string of bombings in Iraq, but said the "terrible and tragic events" haven't stopped the nation from implementing security strides.

Speaking to reporters during her one-day trip to Baghdad, Clinton told reporters at a press conference that the bombings that left nearly 160 people dead and scores wounded since Thursday "are regrettable and horrible in terms of loss of life."

But Clinton said that she and Gen. Raymond Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, share the same perspective about the recent high-profile bombings in Diyala province and Baghdad.

"They do not reflect any diversion from the security progress that has been made," she said. "The reaction from the Iraqi people and the Iraqi leaders was firm and united in rejecting that violence and refusing to allow it to set Iraqi against Iraqi, which is obviously one of its intended goals."

Clinton said she was briefed by Odierno, and they talked about the high-profile attacks in the last few days, which stoked fears of a return to
Shiite-Sunni sectarian violence.

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The Senate has confirmed Christopher Hill to be the new administration's ambassador to Iraq.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The Senate confirmed veteran diplomat Christopher Hill as U.S. ambassador to Iraq on Tuesday, voting 73-23 to put Hill in chargeof the largest U.S. embassy in the world.

Hill, a career Foreign Service officer, was the lead U.S. negotiator in the now-stalled North Korean disarmament talks. He will take over the Baghdad post at a time when President Barack Obama is attempting to wind down the 6-year-old war in Iraq.

His nomination made it past a key Senate test Monday as opponents failed to block the nomination. All 23 votes against the nomination Tuesday came from Republicans, several of whom argued that the nominee has no hands-on experience in the Middle East and speaks no Arabic.

But Sen. John Kerry, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Monday that Hill had great experience "in negotiating complex, high-stakes, multilateral deals in conflict zones."

"The entire resolution of Iraq as a success will revolve around the diplomacy that we apply to it and our ability to seek political reconciliation, which will be implemented by that diplomacy," said Kerry, D-Massachusetts. Hill replaces Ryan Crocker, who was the top American diplomat in Baghdad from March 2007 until February.

– CNN's Dana Bash contributed to this report.

Retired Gen. Anthony Zinni was offered and accepted the post of U.S. ambassador to Iraq. Then, the offer was taken back with no explanation.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Chris Hill is slowly overcoming GOP opposition that has delayed his nomination as U.S. ambassador to Iraq, but it's still unclear why the Obama administration revoked the offer they gave to someone else first — General Anthony Zinni.

Zinni told CNN Monday he hasn't been given any explanation about why the offer he got in January for the post, which he accepted, was abruptly taken back.

Zinni confirmed in an e-mail that he was asked to take the job by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and even congratulated by Vice President Joe Biden. But then, the offer was revoked and extended to Hill — a development Zinni says he heard on the news.

Zinni is a retired four-star Marine general and former head of Central Command. Like President Barack Obama, he was an early critic of the Iraq war.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, told CNN he would have wholeheartedly supported Zinni for position because of his knowledge of the region. Graham, along with Sens. John McCain, R-Arizona, and Sam Brownback, R-Kansas, have led the opposition to Hill, citing his "controversial legacy" as point man in the six-nation talks aimed at dismantling North Korea's nuclear program and his lack of experience in the Middle East.

Graham, however, voted Monday to move Hill's nomination forward, while McCain did not vote. Brownback voted against Hill.

A State Department spokesman had no comment on Zinni.

A senior Democratic congressional source, who would not be quoted speaking about private deliberations, called the decision to nominate Hill over Zinni one of the "great mysteries" of the early days of the Obama administration.

The Iraqi government could be tweeting soon, courtesy of Hillary Clinton.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The Iraqi government could be tweeting soon, courtesy of Hillary Clinton.

The State Department said Monday it is sending a team of technology executives to help the Iraqi government and other groups expand the country's emerging new media industry.

The nine-member delegation, which includes CEOs and other officials from such technology giants as AT&T, Google, Twitter and YouTube, will meet with Iraqi government and education officials, Iraqi technology companies and civil society groups.

A statement issued by the State Department said the team will "provide conceptual input as well as ideas on how new technologies can be used to build local capacity, foster greater transparency and accountability, build upon anti-corruption efforts, promote critical thinking in the classroom, scale-up civil society, and further empower local entities and individuals by providing the tools for network building."

"As Iraqis think about how to integrate new technology as a tool for smart power, we view this as an opportunity to invite the American technology industry to be part of this creative genesis," the State Department statement said.
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In less than seven hours, Odierno has increased the number of “supporters” connected to his new Facebook page by more than a factor of ten.

When his CNN interview initially aired Sunday morning, Odierno had roughly 70 followers on the social networking site and by Sunday afternoon, the general has nearly 900.

The U.S. military commander in Iraq told CNN’s John King that he was excited about using the site to get the word out about what American troops are accomplishing.

“I think it’s important that people can reach out and ask questions,” Odierno said of his new Facebook page. “Maybe [I can] educate them a little bit more on what’s going on here in Iraq and get to know us a little bit better.”

“This is new for me. This is new ground so we’ll see how it goes. But I’m actually pretty excited about it.”

“We, the government of Iraq and the security forces in Iraq are much more suited now for this fight,” Iraqi national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie said on CNN’s State of the Union. “And we believe that now we are leading and we are planning and carrying out most of the combat operations in the country and the United States forces are moving or transitioning to a more support role, more training, more providing more logistical support, rather than engaging in a huge military or kinetic combat operations.”

But al-Rubaie refused to say whether the Iraqi government would permit U.S. troops to stay in the country’s cities past an upcoming June 30 deadline if U.S. Gen. Ray Odierno decided the presence of U.S. troops was still necessary.

“I don't think we should answer this hypothetical question now,” al-Rubaie told Chief National Correspondent John King.

And al-Rubaie was mum when asked how new President Barack Obama was different from former President George W. Bush when it comes to diplomacy and conducting the affairs on the United States.

“I don't want to elaborate on differences,” the Iraqi security adviser said. “But I believe that President Obama understands the situation in Iraq and I believe he wants to stick by … the withdrawal agreement.”

Related: U.S. should be out of Iraq by late 2011, general says

WASHINGTON (CNN) – General Ray Odierno, the top U.S. military commander on the ground in Iraq, said Sunday that he believes U.S. troops will be out of the country by the end of 2011.

CNN Chief National Correspondent John King asked Odierno to rate his confidence, on a scale of one to ten, that U.S. troops would be out by the agreed upon timeline between the U.S. and Iraqi governments.

“As you ask me today, I believe it’s a ten – that we will be gone by 2011.”

Odierno, one of the key architects of the surge strategy in Iraq, also weighed in Sunday on the new president’s approach to the troubled nation.

“He’s our commander-in-chief,” Odierno said of President Barack Obama, whose opposition to the Iraq war and to the surge strategy became trademarks during the 2008 White House race. “As our commander-in-chief, we take direction from him.”

“He’s very attentive. He listens. He’s incredibly intelligent. He talks through the issues. . . .He makes a decision and then we execute those decisions and that’s all you can expect out of your commander-in-chief. And I’ve been very pleased with the interaction that I’ve been able to have with him.”

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WASHINGTON (CNN) – The top U.S. military commander on the ground in Iraq said Sunday that conditions in the war-torn country have improved in the last year or so.

“They’ve improved significantly,” Gen. Ray Odierno told CNN Chief National Correspondent John King on State of the Union. “Obviously, we still have some very serious incidents . . . but, again, it’s much safer.”

Odierno also said Sunday that the number of combat fatalities in March was the lowest number suffered by U.S. troops since the beginning of the Iraq war. “So, there’s been a clear improvement of security here,” Odierno added.

“The issue is: can we maintain that? Can the Iraqis maintain it? And that’s what we’re working through now. We want them to be able to maintain this stability as we pull out.”

Odierno told King that he believed the U.S. military was on track to meet its schedule to reduce the number of U.S. troops in Iraq over the next 18 months, adding though that he had the flexibility to re-assess that schedule.

The general also cautioned that there were still threats in Iraq. “There are some cells out there who are still capable of conducting suicide attacks,” Odierno said when asked about a recent uptick in violence and U.S. fatalities.

Odierno also said the U.S. military had made it more difficult for foreign fighters to get into Iraq through Syria, but there was still support for the Iraqi insurgency coming from Iran.

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General Ray Odierno will be on 'State of the Union' Sunday.

(CNN) — General Ray Odierno, commander of the Multi-National Force in Iraq, will speak with CNN’s John King in an exclusive live interview on Sunday morning’s “State of the Union."

In his first trip to Iraq as Commander-in-Chief, President Obama said this week that it’s time for the Iraqis to take over.

But General Odierno, viewed by many as the driving force behind the escalation of U.S troops that altered the course of the war, has said that troops may not be able to leave two major Iraqi cities by the June 30 deadline for withdrawal as originally planned.

Tune in at 9 a.m. ET as the top U.S. commander in Iraq discusses Obama’s trip, the latest on U.S. troop withdrawals, and the future of the war in Iraq.

Have a question for the general? E-mail StateoftheUnion@CNN.com.