Iraq war about sectarian rivalry, crime: Pentagon

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A struggle for power among sectarian groups and criminals is now the main feature of the Iraq war, the Pentagon said in a report released on Wednesday.

The Pentagon's quarterly report on Iraq to the U.S. Congress also said violence reached a new high in early 2007, although the figures were compiled before U.S. and Iraqi forces began a security crackdown in Baghdad.

"The conflict in Iraq has changed from a predominantly Sunni-led insurgency against foreign occupation to a struggle for the division of political and economic influence among sectarian groups and organized criminal activity," the report said.

Citing the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq from January, the report said the term "civil war" did not adequately capture the complexity of the conflict but did apply to some elements of the struggle.

Any description of the conflict as a civil war or mainly sectarian struggle is politically sensitive in Washington.

Critics of the war have said U.S. troops should not be fighting and dying in Iraq if the conflict is largely an internal one between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims.

The Bush administration has said the sectarian violence is being fueled by al Qaeda militants and that defeating them and creating a stable Iraq are vital U.S. national interests.

The United States has about 142,000 troops in Iraq. Some 3,200 have died there since U.S.-led forces invaded in 2003 to oust Saddam Hussein and disarm Iraq of suspected weapons of mass destruction. No stockpiles of such weapons were found.

"GREATEST IMPEDIMENT"

The Pentagon report said sectarian violence "has become the greatest impediment to the establishment of security and effective governance in Iraq."

It said the violence increased support among Sunnis for al Qaeda in Iraq and among Shi'ites for the Mehdi Army militia group led by radical cleric Moqtada al Sadr.

"Any strategy for success must be designed to turn this trajectory around," the report declared.

It said the number of attacks on U.S.-led forces and Iraqi soldiers, police and civilians between October and December last year was the highest for any three-month period since 2003.

The Pentagon also released figures showing an average of 1,047 attacks per week in January and early February. That compared to an average 904 attacks per week from late May 2006 to the end of the year.

The report also noted that the figures represented only incidents observed by or reported to U.S.-led forces so it could "only provide a partial picture of the violence experienced by Iraqis."

U.S. troops, under new commander Army Gen. David Petraeus, began a joint operation with Iraqi forces on February 14 to crack down on violence in Baghdad.

The U.S. military said on Wednesday murders and executions had halved since the start of the operation, which places a new emphasis on U.S. and Iraqi forces remaining in neighborhoods once they have driven out militia fighters and insurgents.

But military spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell also said car bombs had reached an all-time high in Baghdad last month.