"It is my understanding that they have provided such assurances. I don't know whether to believe them," Gates told reporters.

Gates went on to say that the highest levels of the Iranian government were probably aware of the supply of explosive formed penetrators, or EFPs, to Shiite extremist groups in Iraq.

The number of EFPs that have been found or detonated in Iraq has dropped over the past three months from 99 in July to 53 in October, raising questions about whether Iran has slowed the flow of the weapons into Iraq.

Lieutenant General Raymond Odierno, who is in charge of day-to-day military operations in Iraq, told reporters earlier via video link from Baghdad that he was uncertain whether the drop was the result of action by the Iranians.

"They might have slowed the rate of sending EFPs in," Odierno said. "I just can't tell you right now. I think in a couple of months I'll be able to give you a better idea of that."

He said one of the largest caches of the weapons ever captured was discovered a week ago, but it was unclear how long the weapons had been in Iraq.

"Our initial assessment is that might be around the January time frame, maybe before this agreement," he said, referring to the Iranian assurances.

"So it's unclear yet to me whether they have slowed down bringing in weapons and supporting the insurgents," he said.

The decline in the use of EFP's comes amid a broader drop in levels of violence in Iraq over the past three or four months, which Gates and his military commanders have attributed to a "surge" in US troops in Iraq.

It also followed a meeting in early August in Tehran between Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who pledged his help in calming the security situation in Iraq.

"We have had some discussions on this," Gates said. "How will we know if that flow has been reduced in some significant measure. My own view based on everything I've seen is its too early to tell."

Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, concurred, saying "it is too soon to know that this data point sets up for something that can be sustained."

US commanders in the past have vehemently accused the Iran's Revolutionary Guards Quds Force of stoking the violence in Iraq by training so called "special groups" and arming them with EFPs and other weapons.

"I believe that certainly the leadership of the Quds Force is aware of this. Whether Khamenei was aware I think you'd have to say probably,' Gates said, referring to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

"But I haven't seen anything that was definitive along those lines, but my guess is that the highest levels are aware of it," he said.

Mullen added, "I don't know how they couldn't be."

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