DEFENSE SEC. GATES SAYS AFGHANISTAN IS OUR "GREATEST MILITARY CHALLENGE" (WATCH NEW VIDEO)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday "we are lost" unless the United States can find a way not to kill so many civilians in the pursuit of militants in Afghanistan, and that flooding the chaotic country with U.S. troops would be a disaster.

Source: Anne Gearson, AP Military Writer
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CONGRESS_GATES?SITE=NJMOR&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Gates, the only Republican Cabinet member whom President Barack Obama asked to stay on, told a Senate panel that the Pentagon could send two more brigades to Afghanistan by late spring and a third brigade by late summer to try to salvage a war that has ground to a grim standoff with entrenched and resourceful militants.

The U.S. is considering doubling its troop presence in Afghanistan this year to roughly 60,000, still less than half the number currently in Iraq and a modest commitment when compared with the "surge" of U.S. forces and resources credited with turning around a flagging fight in Iraq.
But Gates said he is deeply skeptical about adding any more U.S. forces beyond that, in part because military dominion in Afghanistan has failed for every great power that tried it.

"The civilian casualties are doing us an enormous harm in Afghanistan, and we have got to do better," to avoid innocent deaths, even though the Taliban militants use civilians as cover, Gates told the Senate Armed Services Committee. "My worry is that the Afghans come to see us as part of the problem, rather than as part of their solution. And then we are lost."

WATCH VIDEO OF GATES APPEARANCE BEFORE CONGRESS HERE:

http://www.youtube.com/v/dCcUER0j3WI&hl=en&fs=1

CLICK ON DIAMOND-SHAPED ARROW TO PLAY VIDEO