WASHINGTON, Feb 7: The United States has to boost its military machine to meet all threats and not just the war in Iraq, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said on Wednesday.

“We need the full range of military capabilities. We need ... the ability for regular force-on-force conflicts, because we don't know what's going to develop in places like Russia and China, in North Korea, in Iran and elsewhere,” he told a panel from the House of Representatives.

He was defending the 2008 budget unveiled on Monday by US President George W. Bush which called for a mammoth $716.5 billion to fund wars in Iraq and Afganistan as well as to pay for a major expansion of the US military.

Mr Bush has pushed a new strategy to curb the violence in Iraq, which calls for 21,500 extra troops to be deployed in the country to secure the capital Baghdad, as well as troubled Anbar province.

But Gates said on Tuesday at a separate hearing in the Senate that he was beginning to look at contingency plans should the latest strategy fail.

“I have asked that we begin to look at other contingencies and other alternatives,” he said.

“I think that the Iraqis have a very good understanding at this point that their participation in this role and their role in this activity is critical to its success and that if they do not fulfil their commitments, that the United States as you quoted me as saying, is going to have to look at other alternatives and consequences,” he said.

That could “include withholding financial assistance and other kinds of things, but also withholding forces,” he added.—AFP