Washington ? Robert M. Gates was unanimously approved by a Senate committee Tuesday to become President Bush’s new defense secretary, after a day-long confirmation hearing in which he bluntly stated that the United States is not winning the war in Iraq.

Gates also told the panel that “it’s too soon to tell” whether the Bush administration made the right decision in launching the invasion in March 2003 to topple Saddam Hussein.

In confirmation hearings that left both Democrats and Republicans praising his candor, Gates warned that the war risks provoking a “regional conflagration” in the Middle East unless a new strategy can arrest Iraq’s slide toward chaos.

“My greatest worry, if we mishandle the next year or two and if we leave Iraq in chaos, is that … we will have a regional conflict on our hands,” he said. “You could have Saudi Arabia, you could have Turkey, Syria, Iran – all would be involved. We’re already seeing Hezbollah involved in training fighters for Iraq. I think all of that could spread fairly dramatically.”

Gates’s cordial reception by the Senate Armed Services Committee signals he will almost certainly be confirmed as the nation’s 22nd defense secretary. He would replace Donald Rumsfeld, who announced his resignation a day after the Nov. 7 elections, in which Democrats regained control of Congress. Gates’s view that the United States is not winning the war stood in sharp contrast to Bush’s own statement on Oct. 25, when he declared, “Absolutely, we’re winning.”

“What we heard this morning was a welcome breath of honest, candid realism about the situation in Iraq,” Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said during a midday break. Levin, who will become committee chairman next month, said this “bodes well … for a speedy confirmation.”

At the end of the session, Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., said, “I think you’re going to be a good secretary.”

In return, Gates emphasized “the importance of the bipartisan approach” and laid out several ways in which he would operate differently than Rumsfeld. “I think the first step is the tone at the top,” he said.

Gates promised to treat the top brass respectfully, a subject that became an issue earlier this year after several retired generals called for Rumsfeld to be fired, in part because they felt he ignored their professional advice.

Gates said a “great deference” should be shown to the judgment of generals once a policy is decided that they have to implement, and he emphasized that one of his first steps as secretary would be to “urgently” consult with U.S. ground commanders in Iraq. “When you treat the professionals in an organization who deliver the mission … with respect and you listen to them … I think that everybody is better served,” he said.

Gates, who was CIA director from November 1991 to January 1993, was also critical of a Pentagon office that had independently examined intelligence on Iraq during the run-up to the war, second-guessing the CIA and other agencies. “I have a problem with that,” he said.

Against fairly light probing by senators, Gates defended his record over past allegations that as CIA deputy in the 1980s he had skewed intelligence reports to fit his views. He said such charges grew largely out of personal animosity between then-Secretary of State George Shultz and then-CIA chief William Casey.

Several senators, listing the immense challenges Gates would face as defense secretary, urged him to be bold in expressing independent views. “You simply have to be fearless – I repeat, fearless” in counseling the president on Iraq and other critical Pentagon matters, advised the committee chairman, Sen. John Warnerm R-Va.

Gates responded later that he has no intention of coming to Washington “to be a bump on a log and not to say exactly what I think, and to speak candidly and, frankly, boldly to people at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.” He also emphasized that he did not seek the job of defense secretary, saying, “I don’t owe anybody anything.”

Gates, 63, made it clear that if confirmed, Iraq will be his highest priority. “I am under no illusion why I am sitting before you today: the war in Iraq,” the white-haired Wichita native told a packed committee hearing room. Gates said the president nominated him to bring “fresh eyes” to the problem, stating repeatedly that “all options are on the table” on Iraq strategy.

Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.