ARAB US RELATIONS - July 20 - Gates Sees No Desire For Afghanistan 'Long Slog'.

US defence secretary Robert Gates, has warned that American public opinion and the military itself has no appetite for a "long slog" in Afghanistan, in one of the frankest admissions yet from a top administration official of limited US patience in the war against the Taliban. Gates' comments came amid concerns voiced by US legislators about current international strategy and continuing casualties on the front itself, with intensified fighting making July the deadliest month for western forces since the US-led invasion of 2001. Yesterday a civilian helicopter crash killed 16 people at a Nato base in southern Afghanistan, according to agency reports, while the Taliban issued a video of a captured US soldier. "After the Iraq experience, nobody is prepared to have a long

slog where it is not apparent we are making headway", Gates told the Los Angeles Times, highlighting the Obama administration's emphasis on making visible progress within a year's time. "The troops are tired; the American people are pretty tired". Some US legislators have already expressed concern about strategy, with senators such as the Democrat Russ Feingold arguing that the US approach is too militarised, while others, such as John McCain, the former presidential candidate, want the dispatch of another 10,000 troops. "Time is running out", said a US congressional aide, alluding to fears that presidential elections next month may be seen as tarnished. "We need a new policy, we need a new restart. On the military side, the strategy is premised on our staying there for years to help the Afghans hold the territory we are retaking. But does the British public or the American public have the patience to bear with it?" A UK debate on Afghanistan has flared up after 15 British soldiers were killed in a week, with military pressure on Gordon Brown, PM, to send more troops and helicopters in support of forces in Helmand province. "It is critical for the senior UK military leadership to speak directly and clearly, as they are doing, as to what their critical resource requirements are and to keep those requirements in front of the national leadership", retired Gen Jack Keane, one of the architects of the surge in Iraq, told the FT. He added that helicopters greatly diminished troops' vulnerability in terrain where there might be only a single road. But in an interview in the Sunday Times, Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan's president, said more troops would not solve the country's problems. Karzai, who is seeking re-election, has long argued for negotiations with the Taliban.