Threats Wrapped in Misunderstandings

Maliki, who controls no militia of his own, also depends on Sadr for political support, making it politically suicidal for him to attempt to dismantle Sadr's Mahdi Army, the largest and most violent militia in Iraq.

"It comes far too close to having the U.S. threaten to take its ball and go home if the Iraqi children do not play the game our way," Anthony Cordesmann, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in an e-mailed analysis, referring to possible withdrawal of support.

Some Iraqis expressed astonishment at a recommendation in the report calling for Iraq's National Police and its police commandos, overseen by the Interior Ministry, to be shifted to the control of Defense Ministry, where the commandos would join the army. There is growing evidence that the majority-Shiite police are infiltrated by Shiite militias and death squads.

Iraqis said that although it might appear to make sense to place the commandos under the majority-Shiite army, which has largely escaped militia infiltration, the recommendation could bring unintended consequences. The Interior Ministry is Shiite-controlled, while the Defense Ministry is headed by a Sunni.

"This is an intervention in the Iraqi structure of the state," said Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish legislator. "This will also be seen as a point for the Sunnis, at the expense of the Shias."

Joost Hiltermann, an Iraq analyst for the International Crisis Group, said such a shift could force the Defense Ministry into an internal policing role that it is not equipped to address. "The more they get dragged into internal policing, they may become sectarianized," Hiltermann said.

"This demand -- no one will execute it," said Hasan Suneid, a legislator and close aide to Maliki. "It's not realistic."

Other challenges face any attempt to implement the report's recommendations. Iraqis have little trust in the army, which is poorly equipped and trained, to provide security. U.S. troops agree with this assessment.

On Friday, a military transition team from the 1st Cavalry Division working with the Iraqi army's 9th Division oversaw a raid in the Fadhil district of central Baghdad. The U.S. military billed it as an Iraqi-led operation all the way. But U.S. soldiers interviewed Saturday said that was not the case.

"Truthfully, they still need training," said Maj. John Best, 34, of Tampa. "Everything that occurred out there had to be led by Americans. They don't have the level of training, the resources, the education, the motivation. They've been fighting so long, they've become complacent."

The U.S. military already has spent the past two years trying to accelerate the training of Iraqi security forces. A central challenge today, according to analysts, is not a lack of American trainers but the question of whether non-sectarian security forces are viable in Iraq: Will a critical mass of Iraqi soldiers remain loyal to the national government as opposed to their respective religious groups?

The issue of having U.S. advisers embedded with Iraqi units could also be difficult. "I wonder whether it will raise Iraqi sensitivities. They may see it as the Americans are ordering them, that they are still the bosses," said Othman. "This is a matter of national pride."