WASHINGTON: US policy makers acknowledge that they can no longer change Iraq into a secular democracy and the best they can achieve now is some form of Islamic republic, says a report.

The three-page report, based on interviews with US officials in Washington and Baghdad and published in the Washington Post, notes that the Bush administration is significantly lowering expectations of what it can achieve in Iraq.

Bush administration officials admit that they will have to settle for “far less progress than originally envisioned during the transition due to end in four months,” the survey says.

“The United States no longer expects to see a model new democracy, a self-supporting oil industry or a society in which the majority of people are free from serious security or economic challenges,” the report says.

Officials who spoke to the Post also accepted that the Bush administration was “never realistic” in setting up such high goals.

Quoting senior US officials and analysts, the Post says that Washington no longer expects to fully defeat the insurgency before departing, but instead to diminish it. “There is also growing talk of turning over security responsibilities to the Iraqi forces even if they are not fully up to original US expectations, in part because they have local legitimacy that US troops often do not.”

The report says that the realities of daily life are a constant reminder of how the initial US ambitions have not been fulfilled in ways that Americans and Iraqis once anticipated.

“Many of Baghdad’s 6 million people go without electricity for days in 120-degree heat. Parents fearful of kidnapping are keeping children indoors. Barbers post signs saying they do not shave men, after months of barbers being killed by religious extremists.

“Ethnic or religious-based militias police the northern and southern portions of Iraq. Analysts estimate that in the whole of Iraq, unemployment is 50 per cent to 65 per cent.”

The report says that the ferocious debate over a new constitution has particularly driven home the gap between the original US goals and the realities after almost 28 months.

The US decision to invade Iraq, the Post points out, was justified in part by the goal of establishing a secular and modern Iraq that honours human rights and unites disparate ethnic and religious communities.

“But whatever the outcome on specific disputes, the document on which Iraq’s future is to be built will require laws to be compliant with Islam. Kurds and Shias are expecting de facto long-term political privileges. And women’s rights will not be as firmly entrenched as Washington has tried to insist.”

US officials also acknowledge that they misread the strength of the sentiment among Kurds and Shias to create a special status. The Shias’ request this month for autonomy to be guaranteed in the constitution stunned the Bush administration, even after more than two years of intense intervention in Iraq’s political process, the report says.

“On security, the Bush administration originally expected the US-led coalition to be welcomed with rice and rosewater, traditional Arab greetings, with only a limited reaction from loyalists of ousted Iraqi military dictator Saddam Hussein. The surprising scope of the insurgency and influx of foreign terrorists has forced Washington to repeatedly lower expectations — about the time-frame for quelling the insurgency and creating an effective and cohesive Iraqi force capable of stepping in.

“Killings of members of the Iraqi security force have tripled since January. Iraq’s ministry of health estimates that bombings and other attacks have killed 4,000 civilians in Baghdad since Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari’s interim government took office April 28.”

The Post points out that last week was the fourth-worst week of the whole war for US military deaths in combat, and August already is the worst month for deaths of members of the National Guard and Reserve.

Attacks on US convoys by insurgents using roadside bombs have doubled over the past year, Army Brig. Gen. Yves Fontaine told the Post. Convoys ferrying food, fuel, water, arms and equipment from Kuwait, Jordan and Turkey are attacked about 30 times a week, he said.

Pressed by the cost of fighting an escalating insurgency, US expectations for rebuilding Iraq — and its $20 billion investment — have fallen the farthest, the report points out.

The Post says that Pentagon officials originally envisioned Iraq’s oil revenue paying many post-invasion expenses. But Iraq, ranked among world leaders behind Saudi Arabia in proven oil reserves, is incapable of producing enough refined fuel amid a car-buying boom that has put an estimated 1 million more vehicles on the road after the invasion.