Gates: Iraq failure will hurt NATO allies

Munich: US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has warned NATO that failure in Iraq and the chaos likely to follow would hurt all allies.

"Chaos in Iraq will result in further conflict in the Middle East and will result in more terrorism reaching out to touch all of us," Gates told world leaders at a security conference in Munich on Sunday.

Gates acknowledged that some US actions had hurt the country's reputation abroad, and cited the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal and detentions at Guantanamo Bay as examples.

“I think we also have made some mistakes and have not presented our case as well as we might in many instances," he said.

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

"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."