US 'not winning conflict in Iraq'

(BBC) US Defence Secretary nominee Robert Gates has told a Senate committee that the US is not winning the war in Iraq. Mr Gates told a confirmation hearing he was open to new ideas on Iraq, but warned the situation there would shape the Middle East for years to come. He is set to be confirmed to replace Donald Rumsfeld, who quit last month amid criticism of his Iraq policy...
"Our course over the next year or two will determine whether the American and Iraqi people and the next president of the US will face a slowly but steadily improving situation in Iraq or... the very real risk and possible reality of a regional conflagration," he said.
Asked by the next chairman of the panel, Democratic Senator Carl Levin, if he believed the US was winning, Mr Gates replied: "No, Sir." He later said he believed the US was neither winning nor losing, "at this point".

I get a kick out of how various news outlets title 'breaking stories' such as this. For instance (and not surprisingly), Fox News called their report, "Gates: U.S. Not Winning in Iraq, Not Losing Either."

So the war is a tie, huh? On that note, wouldn't a tie in war equate nothing but losses for everyone?