US Calls Afghanistan `Greatest Military Challenge`

Gates said Western efforts in Afghanistan have long suffered from a lack of coordination between more than 40 nations.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Tuesday described Afghanistan as America's greatest military challenge and warned the war could be lost if the West failed to address the problem of civilian casualties.

Gates, appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, also said Iraq still held the potential for setbacks even as the U.S. force there winds down under a U.S.-Iraqi pact that calls for troops to leave by 2012.

"There is little doubt that our greatest military challenge right now is Afghanistan," he said. "President (Barack) Obama has made it clear that the Afghanistan theater should be our top overseas military priority."

In his first congressional testimony as Obama's Pentagon chief, Gates said Afghanistan posed a long and difficult fight that could be expected to bring rising U.S. casualties and war costs.

He also emphasized the need for concrete objectives, telling lawmakers the main U.S. goal should be an Afghanistan free of Taliban rule and al Qaeda safe havens.

"If we set ourselves the objective of creating some sort of Central Asian Valhalla over there, we will lose because nobody in the world has that kind of time, patience or money," he said.

THEIR OWN STRUGGLE

Gates said the United States must ensure that Afghans see the battle against the Taliban and other militant groups as their own struggle. Civilian deaths caused by U.S. and NATO operations had already done enormous harm to American interests, he said.

"My worry is that the Afghans come to see us as part of the problem rather than part of their solution, and then we are lost," Gates said.

Civilian casualties, often the result of air strikes ordered by Western ground forces, have undermined popular support for the Western military and the government of President Hamid Karzai in recent years.

Last weekend, thousands of Afghans protested a U.S.-led operation in eastern Afghanistan in which the U.S. military said 15 militants died. Local Afghans said at least 10 of the dead were innocent civilians.

"We need to get the balance right in this in terms of how we interact with the Afghan people or we will lose," Gates said.

NATO and U.S. forces say they have tightened procedures to avoid civilian casualties and Gates has advocated paying compensation and apologizing quickly when they do occur, even if the full facts of a case are not clear.

The Obama administration is considering almost doubling the U.S. force in Afghanistan from 36,000 to more than 60,000 within 18 months to battle an increasingly intense insurgency.

But Gates warned that any further increase in U.S. troops could make the United States appear as an occupying power.

"I would be very skeptical of any additional American force levels," he said. "The Afghan people must believe this is their war and we are there to help them because if they think we are there for our own purposes then we will go the way of every other foreign army that has been in Afghanistan."

'EXIT TICKET'

He said ultimate success in Afghanistan lies with a multibillion-dollar plan to boost the Afghan national army from 80,000 troops to 134,000.

"A strong Afghan National Army and a capable, reasonably honest Afghan National Police ... represents the exit ticket for all of us," he said.

An extra Army brigade of some 3,500 troops is deploying to eastern Afghanistan this month and Gates said another three could deploy by mid-summer if Obama approves the plan.

The Pentagon's ability to ramp up forces in Afghanistan depends partly on how quickly it can withdraw them from Iraq, where 142,000 U.S. troops are deployed.

Obama and top military officials will discuss withdrawal options at a Pentagon meeting on Wednesday.

Violence in Iraq has fallen sharply over the past year, but Gates urged caution and said recent U.S. intelligence suggests a modest increase in the small number of Iranian weapons entering the country.

"Though violence has remained low, there is still the potential for setbacks -- and there may be hard days ahead for our troops," he said.

"As our military presence decreases over time, we should still expect to be involved in Iraq on some level for many years to come."