Washington, Jan 12 : The new secret assessment known as the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) has claimed that the war against Taliban in Afghanistan is caught up in an impasse. The classified document NIE, which was completed last month has doled out a totally contradictory view to the recent statements given by the Pentagon officials and have intensified divisions between the U. S. intelligence agencies and American military commanders about progress in the decade-old war.

The security gains which was achieved by increasing the number of American troops has been weakened due to persistent corruption, incompetent governance and Taliban fighters operating from neighboring Pakistan, according to U. S. officials, The LA Times reports.

The NIE has more 100 pages and represents the consensus view of the Central Investigation Agency and 15 other U. S. intelligence agencies. According to the U. S. officials who have read or been briefed on its contents, last year also the NIE had confronted Pentagon''s claim to have attained long-term security gains in Taliban strongholds in southern Afghanistan. The NIE has also cautioned that the hitches could endanger the US government''s plan to pull out most of the US soldiers and hand over responsibility for the war to the Afghan government by 2014. In one of its section regarding the future state of affairs, the NIE stresses that the Afghan government in Kabul might not be able to survive as the U. S. steadily pulls out its troops and reduces military and civilian assistance to them. "Its viability is tenuous," said one official, citing the report. (ANI)