The report also says that Iran continues to funnel weapons to Shiite insurgents, despite reassurances by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that he would help halt the flow.

"There has been significant security progress, momentum in reconciliation at the local and provincial levels and economic progress," reads the 60-page quarterly report, titled "Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq."

"Improved security is beginning to achieve momentum that, if maintained, may lead to sustained stability," it said.

Yet "more needs to be done to foster national, 'top-down' reconciliation to sustain the gains," the report said.

"National reconciliation is required for long-term stability but continues to be hindered by slow progress and competing interests."

The total number of attacks in Iraq has dropped 62 percent since March, the report says, while the number of weekly attacks, including car bombs, stabilized at around 600 from mid-October, down from around 900 a week in late September and around 1,600 a week in late June.

The Pentagon attributes the progress to the 'surge' of US troops starting in early 2007, as well as the increasing efficiency of the Iraqi security forces and the US policy starting early in the year to mobilize Sunni tribes against Al-Qaeda forces.

Yet "sustained and durable progress" still depends "on further progress in attaining political and economic objectives," the report warns.

"The key long term success will be the government of Iraq's ability to capitalize upon local gains, pass key legislations and promote national reconciliation," the report said.

One of the major US success stories, the organizing of 'concerned local citizen' groups in Sunni regions to fight off Al-Qaeda, remains a potential time bomb.

While the groups are "crucial to the counterinsurgency effort," the report warns that they "may return to violence or form new militias" due to the lack of alternative employment and their slow integration into government forces

The Shiite government of Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki has long looked upon these group with mistrust.

Key benchmarks Washington is using to measure progress in Iraq are the adoption of a law regulating the oil and gas industry, and a law allowing former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party back into the government.

Shiite and Sunni legislators recently clashed over the controversial de-Baathification measure, which is stalled in the Iraqi parliament.

Corruption and sectarian strive within the Ministry of Interior -- in charge of Iraq's police -- remains a major problem, while corruption "at all levels of the oil industry remains a significant problem."

The report notes that the Maliki administration has also failed to improve the supply of water and electricity.

One thing has not changed, the report says: there has been "no identified decrease in Iranian training and funding of illegal Shia militias in Iraq."

"Tehran support for Shia militant groups who attack Coalition and Iraq forces remains a significant impediment to progress towards stabilization."

US officials have long blamed Iraq for supporting the radical Shiite militia forces, which Tehran denies.

"The Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force provides many of the explosives and ammunition used by these groups," the report said.

The report pointed out that, in late September, Iran's president Ahmadinejad promised Maliki that he would help cut off Iranian weapons, funding and other support for Iraq insurgents and militias.

The document covers the September-November 2007 period and is a regular report on activities in Iraq produced for the US Congress.

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