To guard against the Taleban using the talks to boost its standing, while delivering little in return, the US this week will lay out confidence-building measures — specific steps that the US and the insurgents agree to take ahead of formal talks.

Those talks, if they ever take place, would include the United States, the Taleban and the Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai, a senior US official said.

Like others interviewed, the official spoke on condition of anonymity to describe sensitive diplomacy.

The diplomatic, military and intelligence branches of the US government differ over the value of talks with the Taleban or whether now is the right time to so publicly shift focus away from the ongoing military campaign that primarily targets Taleban insurgents. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and some uniformed military leaders recently have sounded some of the strongest notes of caution, especially on when to grant Taleban requests for the transfer of several of its prisoners from the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, military and other US officials said.

The latest Afghan National Intelligence Estimate warns that the Taleban will grow stronger, using the talks to gain credibility and run out the clock until US troops depart Afghanistan, while continuing to fight for more territory, say US officials who have read the classified document.

It says the Afghan government largely has failed to prove itself to its people and likely will continue to weaken and find influence only in the cities. It predicts that the Taleban and warlords will largely control the countryside. The NIE did suggest that eliminating top Taleban leaders in the next two years and continuing to build the Afghan government could help offset that.

Meanwhile, Karzai is still uneasy with the pace and direction of talks. He worries that the United States will strike a deal with the Taleban and force that deal on his government, two Afghan officials told The Associated Press.

US officials close to the negotiations say that despite these warnings the Taleban high command is more ready for talks than in the past, at least with the United States if not the elected Afghan government it opposes.

One sign was the surprising public endorsement by the Taleban of the plan to open a negotiating office in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar. But US officials also cite more subtle indications of a shift toward peace negotiations, including the recent participation in preliminary talks of more senior and influential Taleban representatives.

The US official said negotiators are now confident they are talking to credible intermediaries for the main Taleban command based in Pakistan.

The administration’s top negotiator, Marc Grossman, was building support for talks among regional allies such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia this week, to be followed by discussions with Taleban representatives, US and other government officials said.

One topic was expected to be a US offer to release two or three Taleban prisoners from Guantanamo to custody in Qatar, although two officials said that effort is moving more slowly than plans for the office. A waiting period would follow that transfer before any other Taleban transfers would be considered. US officials said Congress would be consulted throughout.

The Taleban had sought both the office and the prisoner release as preconditions for real talks.

The US official said the US has set clear conditions for opening the office, including that the Taleban must agree not to use it for fundraising or propaganda, or to run insurgent operations. Larger conditions include assurances that the insurgents are truly interested in a political settlement and not using negotiations as a way to stall until US forces leave.

The central political office confers instant, though controversial, legitimacy on the diffuse insurgency as a political movement and provides a site for formal talks. The idea is to give the Taleban room to negotiate in a location with less direct pressure from Pakistan, which has ties to some militant groups and houses parts of the Taleban leadership.

The US intelligence assessment looks beyond the near horizon for talks.

It predicts the likely outcome of two strategies:

— Moderate engagement, in which the US continues special operations raids against key Taleban leaders, and village outreach to strengthen local government, while conventional forces train Afghanistan’s army and police force.

— Limited engagement, in which the US would continue economic and political support, and some Afghan security training, but most troops would withdraw.

Both strategies can weaken the Taleban, the analysts say, but ultimately neither course of action is likely to stop the continued weakening of the Afghan state, the officials said.

In that way, the NIE’s bleak predictions also give the White House reason to hasten the reconciliation process in order to pull US troops out of what some analysts termed a hopeless stalemate.