The civil war in Iraq is likely to deteriorate significantly over the next few months regardless of which combination of options the Bush administration chooses to exercise, according to a report released by a leading Washington think-tank on Wednesday.

The report, Options for Iraq: the almost good, the bad and the ugly, dismisses as “dishonest” the Bush administration’s claims to have readied more than 100 Iraqi military units for combat, pointing out that the true number is probably less than a third of the Pentagon’s estimate.