US not winning in Iraq, US defense

a woman approached him in a hotel dinning room and said she had two sons in Iraq. “For God’s sake, bring them home safe,” Gates recalled her saying.

“Now, that’s real pressure,” Gates told the senators. Gates, who until his nomination November 8 served on a bipartisan panel devising recommendations on Iraq strategy, gave few hints of the direction he might take the US military in Iraq. But when asked whether he thought the United States is currently winning in Iraq, he said, “No, sir.”

He said the status quo was unacceptable and agreed that Iraqi political leaders should be pressured to settle their differences, which he saw as the only way out of violence.