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Against the Mahdi Army as well as the "ceasefire that has been put in place" as factors in the decline in attacks and said, "[W]e don't have a good feeling…or any confidence in terms of how to weigh these different things."

These differing views on whether Iran has been playing a positive role in Iraq are the first clear evidence of a split between Gates and Rice over how to deal with Iran. Rice's State Department is now leaning toward treating Iran as something other than an outright enemy in regard to Iraq, whereas Gates is not ready to soften the administration's position of casting suspicion on Iranian intentions.

Gates was the last administration official to denounce Iran in harsh terms over Iraq, declaring in a speech at a Persian Gulf security conference in Bahrain Dec. 8, "Everywhere you turn, it is the policy of Iran to foment instability and chaos, no matter the strategic value or cost in the blood of innocents."

That rhetoric was almost certainly aimed, however, at avoiding a stampede away from the administration's efforts to pressure Iran on its uranium enrichment program in the wake of the stunning publication of the national intelligence estimate's conclusion that Iran had abandoned covert nuclear weapons work in 2003.

Gates hinted in comments to reporters when he arrived in Bahrain that he was much less certain of the Iranian intention than his rhetoric at the conference would have suggested. He mentioned the call by Shiite Mahdi Army leader Muqtada al-Sadr for a ceasefire as a key factor in the improved security in the Baghdad area, along with the reduction in attacks by armour-piercing rounds which had long been blamed on Iran.