Gates: U.S. must avoid killing Afghan civilians

'Civilian casualties are doing us an enormous harm,' he says

WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday "we are lost" unless the United States can find a way not to kill so many civilians in the pursuit of militants in Afghanistan, and that flooding the chaotic country with U.S. troops would be a disaster.

"My worry is that the Afghans come to see us as part of the problem, rather than as part of their solution. And then we are lost."
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