U.S. Secretary of Defence Robert Gates was trying to soothe ruffled feathers this morning among his NATO allies when he held a press conference to clarify his remarks in yesterday's L.A. Times.

In the Times, he said some NATO forces were not adequately trained for counter-insurgency operations in southern Afghanistan in particular, which is where the Canadians are. "I'm worried we have some military forces that don't know how to do counter-insurgency operations," Gates was quoted as saying.

In his follow-up today, he repeated twice that he had “no problems with the Canadians.” Instead he put the fault on the entire alliance, including the U.S.

“We have to acknowledge the reality that the alliance as a whole has not trained for counter-insurgency operations even though individual countries have considerable expertise at and success in this arena. A coalition at war always faces stresses and strains.”

That should mollify Canada's military brass. But it was another comment Gates made that might raise political eyebrows in Ottawa.

When asked by a reporter if he had any concerns that NATO members would end their Afghan commitments at the end of their current terms, Gates responded: “No, in fact the Dutch have just extended. Their parliament has just voted to extend their commitment by two years, so I think that the people are accepting their responsibilities, particularly those that are already there.”

Will Canada be accepting its "responsibilities" to extend its military term past the February 2009 deadline? In a mightily-divided Parliament, that remains to be seen.