US President George W. Bush said during a surprise visit to Iraq on Monday that security could be maintained with fewer US troops if a turnaround in the restive province of Anbar continues.
Bush made the remarks after a meeting of his "war council" with Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki and other senior Iraqi leaders just days before General David Petraeus and US Ambassador Ryan Crocker report to Congress on the US surge strategy.
"General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker tell me if the kind of success we are now seeing continues, it is possible to maintain the same level of security with fewer American forces," he said.
But did not say how deeply or how quickly US forces can be cut, key questions that have been at the heart of an intensifying debate in the United States over the four-year-old war.
Bush flew in on Air Force One to the dusty air base of Al-Asad in the desert west of Baghdad, in a region torn by a Sunni insurgency that in recent months has abruptly turned in Washington's favour.
The president, who was joined in Iraq by his top national security advisers, was meeting with tribal sheikhs who have shifted allegiances against Al-Qaeda, blamed for most of the violence in the country since the March 2003 invasion.
Bush's visit, only his third to Iraq since the invasion, was aimed at highlighting progress in the violence-wracked country ahead of a White House report to Congress due by September 15.
Bush said the success in Anbar must be followed by the Maliki government, which has come under attack from some quarters in the United States over the failure to restore security.
"I urge members of Congress to listen to what (Petraeus and Crocker) have to say," Bush said.
