Referring to pivotal White House discussions on the war, Gates said: "It is imperative that all of us taking part in these deliberations, civilians and military alike, provide our best advice to the president, candidly but privately."

Though Gates did not mention General Stanley McChrystal by name, his remark appeared aimed at the top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan who has made his views on strategy known in media interviews and a high-profile speech in London last week.

Gates's comment, delivered in an address to the Association of the US Army, echoed criticism on Sunday from retired general James Jones, Obama's national security adviser.

Jones told CNN on Sunday: "It is better for military advice to come up through the chain of command."

McChrystal last week in London dismissed an alternative to the current manpower-intensive strategy under discussion at the White House, saying such an approach using a smaller ground force was "short-sighted."

And asked by Newsweek about proposals to freeze or even reduce the 65,000-strong US force, the general said: "You can't hope to contain the fire by letting just half the building burn."

Gates' press secretary said the defense secretary's remarks were not singling out the commander but were meant as a broad admonishment to all those involved.

"He (McChrystal) is not the only voice that's been out there," Geoff Morrell told AFP.

The fact that Gates urged more discretion among both civilians and military officers in his speech "makes clear that it's an issue on his mind," he said.

McChrystal was summoned to a brief meeting with Obama in Copenhagen on Friday aboard the president's plane.

Gates also defended the pace of deliberations at the White House, despite criticism from Republicans in Congress demanding the president act quickly on a request for more troops from McChrystal.

Saying Obama faced some of the most weighty decisions of his presidency, Gates said that "it is important that we take our time to do all we can to get this right."

In an apparent reference to tensions between senior officers and the White House, Gates said the military would carry out the president's decisions without hesitation.

"And speaking for the Department of Defense, once the commander in chief makes his decisions, we will salute and execute those decisions faithfully and to the best of our ability," he said.

Gates, whose opinion could prove crucial in Obama's final decision about strategy and troops, has yet to say publicly if he supports deploying more American forces to the NATO-led mission.

The debate over war strategy has divided along mainly partisan lines, with Republicans urging Obama to follow the commander's advice and skeptics on the left invoking the Vietnam fiasco and accusing military leaders of trying to shape public opinion.

Senator John McCain, former White House Republican candidate, on Monday blasted Obama's national security adviser over his comments that the Taliban was not poised to return to power in Afghanistan.

"Anybody who believes that you can hand over the country or significant parts of the country to the Taliban and not have to worry about Al-Qaeda returning and working with them and becoming a base for attacks against the United States of America has no understanding of the region or the nature of the enemy," McCain told Fox Business Network.

Jones insisted Sunday that coalition forces in Afghanistan are "robust," and said the solution to regaining the upper hand there is "much more complex" than just deploying tens of thousands additional US troops.

US Army Chief of Staff General George Casey on Monday meanwhile declined to discuss details of possible reinforcements for Afghanistan but told reporters that he would offer his views "directly to the president and to do it privately."

Although the Army has been stretched by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Casey said it had made changes and was better placed to handle troop requests than it was two years ago.

Obama has refused to quickly approve a request for a major troop build-up in Afghanistan, insisting first on a full vetting of the current strategy.

The White House's war council was taking place against the background of rising violence.

Eight US soldiers were killed over the weekend in northeastern Afghanistan when their remote outposts were overrun by Taliban militants, one of the bloodiest days for American forces in eight years of war.

earlier related report
On Afghanistan, US military puts Obama on the spot
By openly declaring their views on the Afghan war, US military leaders have placed President Barack Obama in a bind as he faces a fraught decision over the troubled US-led mission.

Obama has refused to quickly approve a request from his commanders for a major troop build-up in Afghanistan, insisting first on a full vetting of the current strategy.

But while a war council takes place behind closed doors at the White House, top military officers have made no secret of their view that without a vast ground force, the Afghan mission could end in failure.

"They want to make sure people know what they asked for if things go wrong," Lawrence Korb, a former assistant secretary of defense, told AFP.

As a result, if Obama chooses to change course in Afghanistan or decline a request for large numbers of troops, he will be rejecting the advice of the US military, raising the political stakes.

Commentators on the left say the military ought to keep its advice private without trying to influence public debate, with New York Times columnist Frank Rich accusing the generals of an attempt to "try to lock him (Obama) in" on Afghanistan.

Korb said the top brass is keen to avoid a repeat of the run-up to the Iraq war under former president George W. Bush, when military leaders bowed to White House demands for a small invasion force -- with disastrous consequences.

Drawing on blood-soaked experience in Iraq, military commanders now fervently embrace counter-insurgency doctrine, which calls for large numbers of troops providing security and winning the trust of the local population.

Amid rising casualties and a spreading insurgency, skeptics in Congress and the White House have floated proposals to freeze or even reduce the 65,000-strong force.

But McChrystal and his superiors have dismissed such alternatives as half-measures.

"You can't hope to contain the fire by letting just half the building burn," McChrystal told Newsweek.

Top US military officer Admiral Mike Mullen and the head of the regional Central Command, General David Petraeus, have publicly endorsed the manpower-intensive strategy set out in a report by McChrystal.

The commander's stark assessment of the war, which was leaked, has set off a flurry of counter-leaks in US newspapers with unnamed officials in the White House voicing skepticism about esclating the American commitment.

The heated debate over war strategy mostly pits hawks on the right demanding Obama promptly endorse the commander's request for more troops against voices on the left who raise the specter of a quagmire akin to Vietnam.

Senator John McCain and other Republicans invoke Iraq, arguing the US military turned the tide there only after a "surge" of additional combat troops and tactics suited to irregular warfare.

McCain has praised Bush for approving the surge strategy in late 2006, a move that was opposed by most of the US military leadership at the time.

Dismissing calls by Democrats to hold off on a troop buildup until training more Afghan security forces, McCain said: "We've seen this movie before, it didn't work in Iraq and it won't work in Afghanistan."

But the disputed election in Afghanistan, tainted by allegations of widespread fraud, has jolted the administration and renewed serious doubts about the credibility of the Kabul government.

"Nobody expected it to go this poorly and that I think that has got people thinking," Korb said.

The White House meanwhile acknowledged some members of Obama's team have been reading "Lessons in Disaster," a book about flawed decision-making in the Vietnam war.

In the book, author Gordon Goldstein suggests the late president John F. Kennedy, if he had lived, would have rejected the military's demand for combat troops in Vietnam -- as he had lost faith in his generals' advice after the Bay of Pigs fiasco in Cuba.

"Perhaps this is Obama's JFK moment," George Packer of the New Yorker wrote in his blog. "We'll know in a few weeks."

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