Progress toward Iraq goals disappointing: U.S. envoy

By Paul Tait

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The Iraqi government's progress towards meeting targets set by Washington to reduce violence by reconciling warring Shi'ite and Sunni Arab sects has been "extremely disappointing," the U.S. ambassador said on Tuesday.

"Progress on national level issues has been extremely disappointing and frustrating to all concerned, to us, to Iraqis, to the Iraqi leadership itself," Ryan Crocker told reporters, just three weeks before he delivers a key report to Congress.

"We do expect results, as do the Iraqi people, and our support is not a blank check," Crocker said.

One of the few success stories in Iraq, a new strategy of forming alliances with tribes in the restive west, did not amount to reconciliation, he said.

Pressure is growing on President George W. Bush to show progress in the unpopular war or start bringing troops home, and Crocker and General David Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, are due to report to Congress on September 11 or 12.

U.S. forces have launched a nationwide offensive against Sunni Islamist al Qaeda and Shi'ite militias, expecting that such groups will step up their attacks to try to influence debate in Washington before the report.

Washington says the offensive is aimed at buying time for Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's shaky coalition government to meet Washington's benchmarks.

These include a revenue-sharing oil law, constitutional reform, and laws setting a date for provincial elections and easing restrictions on former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath party working in the civil service and the military.

With little or no good news to report on those key issues, Crocker pointed to the success of the strategy of forming alliances with Sunni Arab tribal sheikhs to police their own communities in western Anbar, once Iraq's most violent area.

He referred to it as a "mini-benchmark," a new term which suggests it will be one of the few positive things he and Petraeus will be able to present to Congress. He said similar models were being considered for Iraq's mainly Shi'ite south.