(Updates with Senate panel recommending approval of Gates) By Susan Cornwell WASHINGTON, Dec 5 (Reuters) - A Senate committee unanimously approved President George W. Bush's choice for defense secretary on Tuesday after he told the panel the United States was not winning in Iraq and needed a new approach to end the carnage and avert a possible region-wide war. Robert Gates, a former CIA chief chosen to replace the main architect of U.S. Iraq policy, Donald Rumsfeld, offered a candid assessment that contrasted with rosier pronouncements by Bush and the more combative Rumsfeld. "All options are on the table" in the search for a solution, Gates told a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee. The panel then voted unanimously to approve his nomination, which now goes to the full Senate for a vote that is also expected to be in his favor and could come as early as Wednesday. The White House urged the Senate to move swiftly. On a rare day when initiatives to end the crisis drew more headlines than the mayhem on the streets, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said in Baghdad he was sending envoys to neighboring countries to seek help improve security and would call for a conference of regional states. Gates' hearing took place a day before the release of a much-anticipated report by the Iraq Study Group, co-chaired by former Secretary of State James Baker, offering Bush proposals on stabilizing Iraq and reducing U.S. troops. Violence has devastated the once wealthy oil-exporting nation and eroded U.S. international authority and credibility since the 2003 invasion to oust President Saddam Hussein. On Tuesday, police found some 60 bodies in Baghdad, Interior Ministry sources said, a fairly typical daily figure in a city where U.N. officials estimated 120 civilians were being killed in violence daily in October. An ambush north of the capital killed 14 employees of the Shi'ite Endowment, a foundation overseeing religious sites and mosques, and three car bombs killed 16 and wounded 25 near a fuel station in southern Baghdad. A local official said Iraqi forces in western Anbar province killed 63 insurgents during a two-hour battle. Gates questioned the decision to invade Iraq, something few in the Bush administration ever do in public. "Was the decision to go in right? I think it is too soon to tell," he said. He said there had been "clearly insufficient troops" in Iraq after the invasion, a view shared by many U.S. analysts but never conceded publicly by Rumsfeld. U.S. NOT WINNING Asked by Democratic Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan if the United States was winning in Iraq, Gates replied: "No, sir." He later said he believed the U.S. was not losing either "at this point." Levin, who will chair the committee when Democrats take control of Congress in January after their November mid-term election win, said Gates brought a "refreshing breath of reality." "Dr. Gates, thank you for your candor. That's something that has been sorely lacking from the current occupant in the position that you seek to hold," said Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, a long-time Rumsfeld critic. Gates, 63, who served as CIA director under Bush's father, President George Bush, said U.S. actions over the next year or two would decide whether there would be "a slowly and steadily improving situation in Iraq and in the region or (we) will face the very real risk of a regional conflagration." The Iraq Study Group report is expected to recommend a gradual handover of combat roles to Iraqi forces and possible direct consultations between Washington and Iraq's neighbors Iran and Syria. White House spokesman Tony Snow tried to dampen expectations about its impact. "I think anybody who expects ... a magic bullet out of the Hamilton-Baker commission is probably placing an unfair burden on them," he said. Maliki, under pressure from his Washington backers to rein in the sectarian violence, said Iraqi political leaders would meet in mid-December to try to reconcile rival communities. "We will send envoys to neighboring countries to encourage the governments of those countries to reinforce security and stability," he told a news conference in Baghdad. He did not name which neighboring countries he was sending envoys to. U.S. and Iraqi officials have long accused Syria of doing too little to stem the flow of foreign Islamist fighters and weapons across its long, porous border. (Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed, Aseel Kami and Mariam Karouny in Baghdad and Andrew Gray and Kristin Roberts in Washington)
