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Gates: War in Afghanistan is a 'Tough Pull'

   VOA News 20 June 2010
   United  States  Defense  Secretary  Robert Gates speaks during a media
   conference   after  a  meeting  of  NATO  defense  ministers  at  NATO
   headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, 11 Jun 2010

Photo: AP

   US Defense Secretary Robert Gates (file photo 11 Jun 2010)

   U.S.  Defense  Secretary Robert Gates says the war in Afghanistan is a
   "tough  pull"  (a  hard  job) but that momentum is shifting toward the
   United States and its partners.
   In a televised interview on Fox News Sunday, Secretary Gates said that
   although  progress  against  the  Taliban  is  being  made in southern
   Afghanistan, the war effort is moving more slowly than anticipated.
   Gates  said  the  increase  of  U.S.  casualties  in  Afghanistan  was
   expected,  especially  this  summer, and people have been too quick to
   say the war is going badly.
   In the same interview Sunday, the defense secretary also said there is
   still time to stop Iran from building a nuclear weapon.
   Gates  said  new  U.N.  sanctions  provide  a  "reasonable  chance" of
   persuading  Tehran  to  end  what  the U.S. says is its drive to build
   nuclear bomb.
   Gates  said  the  Obama administration will not concede that a nuclear
   Iran is inevitable.
   Iran  denies  it  is  seeking  a  nuclear weapons and says its nuclear
   program is for peaceful purposes.

   Some information for this report was provided by AP and Reuters.

   

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