Gates Considers Roots of Terrorism

U.S. Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates listens to the opening address of the IISS Asia Security Summit, Friday, June 1, 2007, in Singapore. The U.S. role in Asia-Pacific security and ties between regional superpowers China and India will dominate the annual security conference of defense ministers and top officials this weekend. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara) (Dita Alangkara - AP)

SINGAPORE -- Declining to say whether the U.S. and its partners are winning the war on terror, Defense Secretary Robert Gates called Saturday for more focus on combating poverty and other underlying causes of extremism.

"I think we are still early in this contest," Gates said in a question-and-answer session with attendees of a conference on Asian security, an annual gathering that took on an unusual dimension with the participation of a senior Chinese general who offered a pointed defense of his country's military buildup.

In a speech to the gathering known as the Shangri-la Dialogue, Gates called on Asian nations to contribute more to the war on terrorism and to ensure that Afghanistan not be allowed to slip back into chaos. He touched only lightly on China, whose military buildup had been a central focus of previous conferences.

And while Gates mentioned the Iraq war and warned of security risks posed by the nuclear ambitions of North Korean and Iran, he focused more on broader themes of terrorism and U.S. commitments in Asia.

"In particular, the challenge posed by terrorists inspired by radical ideologies cannot be overcome by any one nation _ no matter how wealthy or powerful," he said, alluding to U.S. efforts to build a lasting coalition.

A member of the audience later asked Gates whether he thought the United States is winning the terror war.

He cited areas of progress, including the elimination in late 2001 of Afghanistan as a haven for al-Qaida. But he also said the Islamic extremists have managed since then to expand their recruiting grounds.

"On the negative side of the ledger, I think we have not made enough progress in trying to address some of the root causes of terrorism in some of these societies, whether it is economic deprivation or despotism that leads to alienation," he said.

He called for more "creative thinking" to address the root causes of Islamic extremism, but he added that even those efforts will not be the complete answer to winning what he called a long war on terrorism.

"One of the disturbing things about many of the terrorists that have been caught is that these are not ignorant, poor people," he said. "These are educated people, often from professional families. So dealing with poverty and those issues is not going to eliminate the problem, but it certainly can reduce the pool of people prepared to give their lives for this cause."

After Gates spoke, a Chinese general addressed the conference and said, in response to a question from the audience, that China expects a final agreement in September on a long-standing U.S. proposal to establish a "hotline" between the two countries' defense leaders for use during crises.

Lt. Gen. Zhang Qinsheng, deputy chief of China's General Staff and the highest ranking Chinese officer to participate in the Singapore conference, said technical issues had held up a hotline agreement. He said he would be attending meetings in Washington in September where "we will finalize" a deal.