WASHINGTON — The US administration may recommend dividing Iraq into three highly autonomous regions under a loose federation as it becomes increasingly difficult for American troops to prevent a civil war in this multi-religious and multi-ethnic country. An independent commission set up by US Congress with the approval of President George Bush may recommend carving up Iraq into the Shia, Sunni and Kurdish highly autonomous regions, media reports said. The Iraq Study Group, co-chaired by James Baker, the former US Secretary of State during the first Gulf War in 1991 and Lee H. Hamilton, former congressman and director of the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars, is preparing to report after next month�s congressional elections. The recommendation to establish a federation in Iraq is also linked to a sharp increase in US war casualties. In a front page report published on Sunday, The Washington Post said the number of wounded was �a more accurate gauge of the fierceness of fighting� and not the more than 2,700 killed. �Advances in armour and medical care today allow many service members to survive who would have perished in past wars,� the report noted. The losses in Iraq, and […]