U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates expressed his frustration on Friday over NATO allies' failure to materialize their pledges on Afghanistan.
At a working dinner with his NATO colleagues on Thursday night, Gates put aside a prepared speech and spoke from his heart, he told reporters on Friday.
"I told them my expectations are simple: I expect government decisions and actions to match government rhetoric," said Gates on Friday.
"It is important that we live up to our pledges in both civilian and military spheres necessary for success in Afghanistan."
Gates said many of the shortfalls that existed 18 months ago still exist today. He pointed out that for the first time more coalition soldiers were killed in Afghanistan than in Iraq last month. As NATO defense ministers meet in Brussels on Thursday and Friday, three more coalition soldiers were killed in Afghanistan.
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force has nearly 53,000 troops in Afghanistan. But the force still has shortfalls in both troops and equipment in the face of increasingly active Taliban insurgency.
Gates was delighted at the Italian government's announcement that it will lift mobility restrictions on its forces in Afghanistan. He hoped that Italy's move can serve as an example to other troop-contributing nations.
All 26 NATO allies have troops in Afghanistan. But only Britain, Canada, the Netherlands and the United States are engaged in fighting the Taliban in the south.
Gates also applauded the Netherlands' signing of a memorandum of understanding on the purchase and operation of three C-17 strategic airlift aircraft.
Fifteen NATO nations have agreed to this project, and seven of them have signed the memo.
The fleet will be based at Papa Airbase in Hungary. According to the current planning, the first aircraft will be delivered in November 2008 and the remaining two in 2009.
The C-17s will be used by the 15 countries to meet national requirements, including for NATO and European Union (EU) missions. The project is open to other NATO allies.
At Friday's session of NATO defense ministers' meeting, Gates pushed for a design of options in missile defense that will cover all territories of NATO's European allies.
The proposed U.S. missile shield to be based in Poland and the Czech Republic reportedly would protect most of Europe from the so-called possible missile attacks from Iran. But parts of Bulgaria, Romania and Greece as well as the whole of Turkey are not covered by the U.S. system.
NATO heads of state and government at their Bucharest summit in April ordered studies on a NATO short- and medium-range missile shield that can bolt on to the U.S. system so that all NATO's European allies can be protected.
"Here in Brussels we heard calls to intensify our efforts by the 2009 (NATO) summit to ensure that our leaders have real, comprehensive integrated missile defense options," said Gates.
But NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said Friday that the ministers did not go into details on this issue.
"This meeting comes too early after Bucharest to go into that kind of detail," he told a separate press conference. He said discussions have not reached the political level although relevant committees are working on the issue.
Source:Xinhua
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