U.S. government auditors are reported to have determined that Iraq has failed to meet most of the 18 benchmarks mandated by Congress to judge military and political progress in the war-torn country.
U.S. media say a report to be issued by the Government Accountability Office will say the Iraqi government has failed to meet at least 13 of the 18 goals set by U.S. lawmakers to assess President Bush's plan to send an additional 30,000 troops into Iraq earlier this year.
The GAO report is expected to be delivered to Congress in the coming days, ahead of a long awaited assessment by the Bush administration on the state of the war.
A preliminary assessment released by the White House in July said the Iraqis had made satisfactory progress on eight of the benchmarks, while several others were either unsatisfactory or mixed.
A White House spokesman, Gordon Johndroe, says the GAO's report is based on far tougher measurements.
The upcoming report on the situation in Iraq will be delivered next month by the top two U.S. officials there - Ambassador Ryan Crocker and Army General David Petraeus. It is expected to show that the security situation has improved thanks to the additional U.S. troops sent to Iraq since January.
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