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 U.S. 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.”

The report was issued in the fifth year of a war that has taken the lives of more than 3,000 U.S. troops, many thousands of Iraqis and is costing the United States an estimated $10 billion (euro7.2 billion) a month.

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 U.S. 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 U.S. forces in Iraq.

The new assessment landed as both houses of Congress debated legislation to order the withdrawal of U.S. 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.

Still, with polls showing scant public support for the war, and the U.S. casualty count climbing, Republicans whose names will be on the 2008 election ballot have shown increasing signs of restiveness in recent weeks.

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