WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday “we are lost” unless the United States can find a way not to kill so many civilians in the pursuit of militants in Afghanistan, and that flooding the chaotic country with U.S. troops would be a disaster. Gates, the only Republican Cabinet member whom President Barack Obama asked to stay on, told a Senate panel that the Pentagon could send two more brigades to Afghanistan by late spring and a third brigade by late summer to try to salvage a war that has ground to a grim standoff with entrenched and resourceful militants. The U.S. is considering doubling its troop presence in Afghanistan this year to roughly 60,000, still less than half the number currently in Iraq.–Contact The Daily Reveille’s news staff at [email protected]