Robert Gates, the White House choice to be the next defence secretary, yesterday conceded the United States is not winning the war in Iraq and warned that if that country is not stablized in the next year or two it could lead to a "regional conflagration."

At the outset of his Senate confirmation hearing to replace Donald H. Rumsfeld, Gates said he is open to new ideas about correcting the US course in Iraq, which he said would be his highest priority if confirmed as expected.

Gates, 63, said he believes President George W. Bush wants to see Iraq improve to the point where it can govern and defend itself, while seeking a new approach. "What we are now doing is not satisfactory," Gates said.

"In my view, all options are on the table, in terms of how we address this problem in Iraq," he added.

Asked directly by Senator Carl Levin, a Democrat, whether the US is winning in Iraq, Gates replied, "No, sir."

In a followup question, Senator John McCain, a Republican and an advocate of increasing US troop strength in Iraq, asked whether Gates believes the US had too few troops at the outset of the war in 2003.

"I suspect in hindsight some of the folks in the administration would not make the same decisions they made," including the number of troops in Iraq to establish control after Saddam Hussein's regime collapse, Gates said.

He also told Levin he believes a political solution in Iraq is required to end the violence.

The confirmation hearing comes amid intensifying pressure on Bush to take a new approach in Iraq, reflecting the outcome of the November 7 elections that put Democrats back in control of both houses of Congress. Democrats and some Republicans have pressed Bush to begin withdrawing some of the 140,000 US troops.

US deaths in Iraq are approaching 2,900 and a relentless insurgency and escalating sectarian violence are raising questions about whether Iraq will devolve into all-out civil war, and whether Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government can ever be effective.

"Our course over the next year or two will determine whether the American and Iraqi people and the next president of the United States will face a slowly but steadily improving situation in Iraq and in the region or will face the very real risk, and possible reality, of a regional conflagration," Gates told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Bush has repeatedly refused the idea of a quick US withdrawal from Iraq and said he wants to keep US forces there until Iraq is able to govern and defend itself without being a haven for terrorists.

"It seems to me that the United States is going to have to have some kind of presence in Iraq for a long time ... but it could be with a dramatically smaller number of US forces than are there today," Gates said.

Source: China Daily