Gates sees progress in Afghan war

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S.-led forces are making progress against insurgents in Afghanistan despite significant casualties and concerns about the quality of Afghan troops, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Sunday.

Gates told the "Fox News Sunday" program that U.S. General Stanley McChrystal and other military leaders are confident that the campaign against Taliban insurgents, particularly in southern Afghanistan, is moving in the right direction.

McChrystal is the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan.

"It is a tough pull and we are suffering significant casualties," Gates said, adding that the Pentagon had expected a fierce battle in the southern city of Kandahar and other Taliban-controlled areas.

"He (McChrystal) is confident he will be able to demonstrate by December that not only do we have the right strategy but that we are making progress," Gates said.

The U.S. defense secretary, however, said it was too early to be able to say how many U.S. troops would be withdrawn from Afghanistan and how quickly they would leave when a planned drawdown began in July 2011.

"That absolutely has not been decided," Gates said.

President Barack Obama decided in December to send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan as part of a revised strategy that focuses on securing Kandahar, the Taliban's birthplace, to try to turn the tide in the nearly nine-year-old war.

Obama also announced the July 2011 date for the gradual withdrawal of troops. Transferring responsibility for security to Afghan troops in certain parts of the country is one of the linchpins of the Obama strategy.

But doubts remain that Afghan troops will be able to assert control if given broader authority next year -- recent reports have suggested that Kabul's army is poorly trained and suffers high rates of desertion.

Some top military officials have said privately that they doubt they will really know if the war strategy is working or not until next summer, around the time Obama plans to begin a troop withdrawal, conditions permitting.

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel told ABC's "This Week" program that the July 2011 drawdown date was "firm," adding that Washington was seeing signs that the Afghan government was making headway on security.

"We are now at that point in Afghanistan, and in fact for the first time in eight years, nine years, they're actually meeting their police recruitment requirements as well as their army recruitment requirements," he said in an interview aired on Sunday.

Gates said he was confident that Afghan troops would be ready to take over primary responsibility for security in some parts of Afghanistan.

(Writing by Paul Simao, Editing by Will Dunham)