Iraq failure will hurt all NATO allies, Gates says

MUNICH, Germany, Feb 11 (Reuters) US Defense Secretary Robert Gates today warned NATO that failure in Iraq and the chaos likely to follow would hurt all the allies, regardless of whether they had opposed or supported the 2003 invasion.

''If the United States and our partners in Iraq fail and there is chaos in Iraq, every member of this alliance will feel the consequences,'' Gates said at the Munich Security Conference, an annual gathering of world leaders.

''Chaos in Iraq ... will result in further conflict in West Asia and will result in more terrorism reaching out to touch all of us,'' he said of US-led attempts to put down an insurgency and end sectarian strife in Iraq.

''There may be great disagreement in the room on how we got to where we are, but the reality is, as of today, failure in Iraq will impact every country represented in this room.'' The invasion of Iraq divided NATO, with Britain, Italy and Spain among countries that supported it, and France and Germany leading opponents.

Gates, in his first major public address since replacing Donald Rumsfeld in December, acknowledged in reply to questions that some US actions had hurt the country's reputation abroad.

The former CIA director cited the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq and the indefinite detention of terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay as examples.

''I don't have any doubt that there is, in certain quarters, anti-American propaganda,'' Gates said. ''But I think we also have made some mistakes and have not presented our case as well as we might in many instances.'' GATES SEES NO NEW COLD WAR But Gates slapped down suggestions that US actions were leading to a new Cold War with Moscow. ''There is no desire for a new Cold War with Russia and one is completely unnecessary,'' he said.

Gates, who studied the Soviet Union and Russia as a career CIA analyst, dismissed as the blunt talk of an old spy accusations by Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday that the United States sought to force its will on the world.

He rejected a call for the United States to charge or release all prisoners held at the Guantanamo Bay base on Cuba.

''There is no question that most of us would like to close the detainee facility at Guantanamo,'' he said. ''But there are also people at Guantanamo frankly who should never be released, who are serious committed terrorists by their own admission.'' Gates said Europe must commit more troops and money to Afghanistan if NATO was to remain a potent military alliance.

Failure to give the needed resources to win in Afghanistan would be a ''mark of shame'' for the world's richest countries, he said.

But he also sought to ease tensions with his counterparts that some administration critics blame on Rumsfeld's brusque style. Alluding to a 2003 comment by his predecessor that led to anger among some allies and accusations of US arrogance, he said he saw no division of ''old Europe versus new''.

Instead, he said the division was between those that did all they could to fulfill NATO's commitments and those that did not.

''NATO is not a 'paper membership,' or a 'social club' or a 'talk shop'. It is a military alliance -- one with very serious real world obligations,'' he said.

REUTERS SY MIR KP1744