Despite the next year's withdrawal timetable approved by both houses of U.S. Congress, a senior U.S. military official says nearly half of the 30,000 additional U.S. troops demanded by George W. Bush have already been deployed to Iraq. "The rest were either in staging areas in neighboring Kuwait or on their way, "Rear Admiral Mark Fox Sunday told a joint news conference in Baghdad." We expect the remainder to be in place by early June." Fox further said there are about 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq at the time being. Most of the troops have been sent to Baghdad. The rest have been sent to the western province of al-Anbar. Iraqi army Brigadier Qassim Mussawi, spokesman for the Baghdad security operation, for his part said the Iraqi Army would continue the neighborhood-to-neighborhood sweep that began in Baghdad on Feb. 14, urging the Iraqi people to cooperate.
Mussawi claimed the violence had decreased in Baghdad and terrorists were pushed into corner. "The terrorists went to the surrounding areas and these areas are breeding grounds for violence ... tribal leaders are carrying operations against them,'' he said.