WASHINGTON: Two new government reports, released late Monday, agreed that civilian violence has decreased and security has improved in Iraq, but were pessimistic about prospects for political and economic progress and warned that costly military gains would remain fragile.

One report, by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, concluded that many political reconciliation efforts have stalled, that Iraq’s security forces remain largely unable to operate without US assistance and that its central government has not fulfilled commitments to spend its own money on reconstruction.

After a bleak GAO assessment last summer, the report said several crucial measures the Bush administration uses to demonstrate economic, political and security progress are either incorrect or far more mixed than the administration has acknowledged.

The GAO report contrasted with a Pentagon report, dated June 13 but not released until Monday. The Defense Department’s quarterly assessment to Congress, “Measuring Security and Stability in Iraq,” said that “security, political and economic trends in Iraq continue to be positive, although they remain fragile, reversible and uneven.”

In many respects, the two reports seemed to measure wholly different realities.

In its quarterly report to Congress, the US Department of Defense offered a generally upbeat assessment of Iraq’s security and political situation, noting that overall acts of violence had fallen to their lowest levels in more than four years.

The 74-page Pentagon document emphasized what it called the “negative role” in Iraqi security that Iran and Syria have played there. The 94-page GAO report did not mention Iran and referred to Syria only in the context of Iraqi refugees who had settled there.

Because of deep sectarian divisions, the Pentagon report predicted that future political and diplomatic progress in Iraq “may be slow and uneven.” The report also noted that new laws must be implemented fairly to avoid heightening sectarian tensions.