U.S. must focus on Iraq, less on future wars: Gates

By Andrew Gray

COLORADO SPRINGS, Co. (Reuters) - The U.S. military should focus more on winning in Iraq and preparing to fight other insurgencies and less on possible big wars with other countries, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Tuesday.

"I have noticed too much of a tendency toward what might be called 'next-war-itis' -- the propensity of much of the defense establishment to be in favor of what might be needed in a future conflict," Gates said.

"It is true that we would be hard-pressed to launch a major conventional ground operation elsewhere in the world at this time -- but where would we sensibly do that?" he said at a seminar for journalists in Colorado Springs.

Gates said the U.S. Air Force and Navy had ample combat power to deal with any aggression in the Gulf, on the Korean Peninsula or in the Straits of Taiwan -- clear references to possible actions by Iran, North Korea or China.

He said that, to remain viable, any major weapons program should have to show it was relevant to the type of counterinsurgency wars being waged in Iraq and Afghanistan and more likely to occupy U.S. forces in future.

"Smaller, irregular forces -- insurgents, guerrillas, terrorists -- will find ways, as they always have, to frustrate and neutralize the advantages of larger, regular militaries," Gates said.

"And even nation-states will try to exploit our perceived vulnerabilities in an asymmetric way, rather than play to our inherent strengths," he said at the seminar, organized by the conservative Heritage Foundation.

Gates' vision will be heard with interest by policymakers and makers of military hardware but he does not have much time left to implement it since President George W. Bush leaves office in January.