WASHINGTON – Baghdad has not met 11 of its 18 political and security goals, according to a new independent report on Iraq that challenges President Bush’s assessment on the war.

The study, conducted by the Government Accountability Office, was slightly more upbeat than initially planned. After receiving substantial resistance from the White House, the GAO determined that four benchmarks – instead of two – had been partially met.

But GAO stuck with its original contention that only three goals out of the 18 had been achieved. The goals met include establishing joint security stations in Baghdad, ensuring minority rights in the Iraqi legislature and creating support committees for the Baghdad security plan.

“Overall key legislation has not been passed, violence remains high, and it is unclear whether the Iraqi government will spend $10 billion in reconstruction funds,” U.S. Comptroller David Walker said in prepared remarks for a Senate hearing today.

GAO’s findings paint a bleaker view of progress in Iraq than offered by Mr. Bush in July and comes at a critical time in the Iraq debate. So far, Republicans have stuck by Mr. Bush and staved off Democratic legislation ordering troops home. But many, who have grown uneasy about the unpopularity of the war, say they want to see substantial improvement in Iraq by September.

Next week the top military commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, and an American ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, are scheduled to brief Congress.

“While the Baghdad security plan was intended to reduce sectarian violence, measuring such violence may be difficult since the perpetrator’s intent is not clearly known,” GAO states in its report. “Other measures of violence, such as the number of enemy-initiated attacks, show that violence has remained high through July 2007.”

Republican leaders today showed no signs of wavering in their support for Mr. Bush.

“The GAO report really amounts to asking someone to kick an 80-yard field goal and criticizing them when they came up 20 or 25 yards short,” Rep. John Boehner of Ohio said.

Senate McConnell told reporters he would like to ensure a long-term American presence in the Middle East to fight Al Qaeda and deter aggression from Iran.

“And I hope that this reaction to Iraq and the highly politicized nature of dealing with Iraq this year doesn’t end up in a situation where we just bring all the troops back home and thereby expose us, once again, to the kind of attacks we’ve had here in the homeland or on American facilities,” Mr. McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, said.

Democrats said the GAO report showed that Mr. Bush’s decision to send more troops to Iraq was failing because Baghdad was not making the political progress needed to tamp down sectarian violence.

“No matter what spin we may hear in the coming days, this independent assessment is a failing grade for a policy that simply isn’t working,” Senator Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, said.

The report does not make any substantial policy recommendations, but says future administration reports “would be more useful to the Congress” if they provided more detailed information.

Earlier this year, Mr. Bush sent 30,000 extra troops to Iraq to enhance security in Baghdad and Anbar province. In a congressionally mandated progress report released by the White House in July, Mr. Bush judged that Baghdad had made satisfactory progress in eight of the 18 benchmarks. In five of those eight areas, GAO determined that Iraq had either failed or made only partial progress.

The disparity is largely due to the stricter standard applied by GAO in preparing the report. GAO used a “thumbs up or thumbs down” approach in grading Baghdad, whereas Mr. Bush’s assessment looked at whether Iraq was achieving progress. For example, Mr. Bush said Iraqi politicians had made satisfactory progress in reviewing its constitution, whereas GAO ruled they had failed because the process was not complete.

The State Department and Defense Department reviewed the report before its release. According to officials interviewed last week, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the study had not been released, the administration disputed GAO’s conclusion that Iraq has failed to provide three trained and ready Iraqi brigades to support Baghdad operations or to ensure that the security plan will not provide a safe haven for outlaws.

In the final report released today, GAO marked those two benchmarks as “partially met” and alludes to pushback it received from the Pentagon.

For example, GAO said it found that despite increased military operations in Baghdad, “temporary safe havens still exist due to strong sectarian loyalties and militia infiltration of security forces.” The Defense Department countered that the recent troop buildup had significantly reduced the number of safe havens inside Baghdad and in al-Anbar and Diyala provinces.

Regarding the deployment of the three Iraqi brigades, GAO found that of the 19 Iraqi units supporting Baghdad operations only 5 had performed well. The remaining units experienced problems with lack of personnel or equipment.