Reports of Progress In Iraq Challenged - Critics Cite Administration's Past Rhetoric

By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 10, 2007; Page A14

----

But a number of analysts and critics said this week that some of those signs indicate less progress than the administration has suggested. Sectarian attacks in Baghdad are down at the moment, but the deaths of Iraqi civilians and U.S. troops have increased outside the capital. Though Iraqi leaders have agreed on a new framework law for oil resources, the details of how the oil revenue will be divided among competing Iraqi groups remain unresolved.

---

Bush prefaced his report, given in a speech to the American Legion, by saying that it is too early to judge success. Others have added similar caveats. "I think people have been badly burned by letting hopes outride analysis" in the past, said one senior administration official, "and there is going to be a genuinely careful look at everything before saying it." Though there are positive indicators, he said, "right now there is no trend."


---

At times, however, Bush's assessment appeared less than fully accurate. "The Iraqi government," the president said, "has completed the deployment of three additional Iraqi Army brigades to the capital. They said they were going to employ three brigades, and they did." But a senior U.S. military official in Baghdad said this week that two Iraqi brigades and one battalion of a third have arrived in Baghdad. Two of the five new U.S. brigades committed under the new strategy have also arrived.

Bush's report that "Iraqi and U.S. forces have rounded up more than 700 people affiliated with Shia extremists" appears to have little to do with the new strategy. The number is "based on captures . . . since July 2006," the military official said. Bush first reported the same roundup -- citing 600 captures -- last fall.