(Adds Mullen comment, paragraph 15-16) By Doina Chiacu WASHINGTON, July 20 (Reuters) - U.S. presidential hopeful Barack Obama called the situation in Afghanistan "precarious and urgent" on Sunday and said Washington should start planning to transfer more troops there from Iraq. The Illinois Democrat spoke from Afghanistan on the CBS program "Face the Nation" after meeting privately with Afghan President Hamid Karzai on the second day of an overseas trip meant to bolster his foreign policy credentials. "We have to understand that the situation is precarious and urgent here in Afghanistan and I believe this has to be the central focus, the central front, in our battle against terrorism," Obama said. He said the United States should start planning immediately for a shift of American soldiers from Iraq to Afghanistan. There are four times as many U.S. troops in Iraq as the 36,000 in Afghanistan, yet more American soldiers were killed in Afghanistan than in Iraq in both May and June. "I think the situation is getting urgent enough that we have to start doing something now," Obama said. After arriving in Afghanistan on Saturday, Obama was briefed by the U.S. commander of NATO-led forces in the east of the country. He will also visit Iraq, Jordan, Israel, Germany, France and Britain on a foreign tour he hopes will help answer Republican criticism that he lacks the experience to be commander in chief. His Republican rival in November's U.S. election, John McCain, is a Vietnam War veteran who says he will be stronger on security than the first-term Illinois senator. More than six years after a U.S.-led coalition ousted the Islamist Taliban government that had sheltered al Qaeda, there has been a sharp rise in violence in Afghanistan this year. "One of the biggest mistakes we've made strategically after 9/11 was to fail to finish the job here, focus our attention here. We got distracted by Iraq," Obama said. MORE FOR AFGHANISTAN Obama wants to send two more brigades, or some 7,000 U.S. troops, to Afghanistan and shift the emphasis from what he calls the Bush administration's "single-minded" focus on Iraq. "There's starting to be a growing consensus that it's time for us to withdraw some of our combat troops out of Iraq, deploy them here in Afghanistan, and I think we have to seize that opportunity. Now is the time for us to do it," he said. He said that if the United States waited for a new administration to take office, it could take a year before American reinforcements arrive in Afghanistan. Adm. Michael Mullen, President George W. Bush's top military advisory as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the situation in Afghanistan was mixed, but not dire. "I would not say in any way, shape or form that we're losing in Afghanistan," he said on "Fox News Sunday." But Obama said terrorist networks have thrived in Afghanistan while the U.S. military has been focused on Iraq. "This is where they can plan attacks, they have sanctuaries here," he said. "They are gathering huge amounts of money as a consequence of the drugs trade in the region. And so that global network is centered in this area." Obama also said he would not tolerate militant sanctuaries in Pakistan, which NATO blames for the spike in violence inside eastern Afghanistan. "I will push Pakistan very hard to make sure that we go after those training camps," he said. "I think it's absolutely vital to the security interests of both the United States and Pakistan." (Editing by Alan Elsner)
A Palestinian boy walks out of his home across a settlement near Jerusalem known to Israelis as Har Homa and to Palestinians as Jabal Abu Ghneim July 20, 2008. British Prime ...
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