US must show progress in Afghan war by next summer: Gates

AFP, Los Angeles

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, in a newspaper interview published Sunday, that US-led forces in Afghanistan must show progress by next summer to avoid the public perception that the conflict has become unwinnable.
Gates told The Los Angeles Times that victory in that country was a "long-term prospect" under any scenario and that the United States would not win the war in one year.
However, US forces must begin to turn the situation around in a year, he said, or face the likely loss of public support, The Times
reported.
"After the Iraq experience, nobody is prepared to have a long slog where it is not apparent we are making headway," Gates is quoted as saying in the interview. "The troops are tired; the American people are pretty tired."
Gates gave the interview aboard his plane as he returned to Washington after visiting sailors Friday at the Great Lakes Naval Station in Illinois, the paper said.
Gates has spoken in the past about the need for progress in Afghanistan and the public's fatigue of war, The Times said.
But in the interview, he went further by offering a more specific time frame for needed progress as well as the consequences of failing to meet it, the report said.