The Iraqi government has not yet fully met any of 18 goals for political, military and economic reform, the Bush administration said yesterday in an interim report certain to inflame debate in Congress over growing calls for a US troop withdrawal.

In an assessment required by Congress, the administration accused Syria of fostering a network that supplies as many as 50 to 80 suicide bombers per month for Al-Qaida in Iraq. It also said Iran continues to fund extremist groups.

The report said that despite progress on some fronts by the government of Nouri al-Maliki, "the security situation in Iraq remains complex and extremely challenging," the "economic picture is uneven" and political reconciliation is lagging.

At a news conference that coincided with the report's release, President George W. Bush said: "I believe we should succeed in Iraq and I know we must."

In remarks clearly aimed at his critics, he added, "When we start drawing down our forces in Iraq, it will (be) because our military commanders say the conditions on the ground are right, not because pollsters say it'll be good politics."

The report warned of "tough fighting" during the summer, as US and Iraqi forces "seek to seize the initiative from early gains and shape conditions of longer-term stabilization."

While Bush announced last winter he was ordering thousands of additional troops to the war zone, the full complement has only arrived in recent weeks. "The full surge in this respect has only just begun," the report said.

In an evident jab at critics of Bush's war policies, the report also said progress toward political reconciliation was hampered by "increasing concern among Iraqi political leaders that the United States may not have a long term-commitment to Iraq."

'Balanced and sober'

The report was issued in the fifth year of a war that has taken the lives of more than 3,000 US troops, many thousands of Iraqis and is costing the United States an estimated US$10 billion a month.

In all, it credited the Iraqi government with satisfactory progress on eight benchmarks, unsatisfactory progress on another eight and mixed results on the other two.

At the White House, press secretary Tony Snow said the fact that "satisfactory progress" has been made in several security areas "should provide some space for the government of Iraq to make progress on key political benchmarks."

"The report is balanced and sober," he said in a statement. "It documents the challenges faced by US and Iraqi forces and provides a basis for measuring progress as the surge enters the stage of full implementation."

The report was designed as an interim assessment of the shift in policy that Bush announced last winter, in the wake of Republican defections in an election in which the war played a significant role.

A second report is due in September from Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of US forces in Iraq.

The new assessment landed as both houses of Congress debated legislation to order the withdrawal of US troops by next spring. The House appeared on track to approve its version of the bill later in the day, but opponents in the Senate appear to have the strength to prevent a final vote next week in the Senate.

In either event, Bush has pledged to veto the legislation, and has enough support to make his rejection stick.

Bush said it was too early to evaluate whether the troop increase was working and that a broader assessment by General David Petraeus and US Ambassador Ryan Crocker in September will be pivotal.

"We'll... have a clearer picture of how the new strategy is unfolding, and be in a better position to judge where we need to make any adjustments," Bush told the news conference.

But neither he nor administration officials have speculated about what might happen after that.

CIA leak acknowledged

Bush yesterday acknowledged publicly for the first time that someone in his administration likely leaked the name of a CIA operative, although he also said he hopes the controversy over his decision to spare prison for a former White House aide has "run its course".

"And now we're going to move on," Bush said in a White House news conference.

Ten days ago, Bush commuted the 30-month sentence given to I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby by a federal judge in connection with the case.

Libby was the former chief of staff to Vice-President Dick Cheney.

Bush also defended the decision to commute Libby's sentence. "The Scooter Libby decision was, I thought, a fair and balanced decision," Bush said.

(China Daily via agencies July 13, 2007)