Adm. William Fallon, the head of U.S. Central Command, which oversees American forces in the Middle East and Central Asia, said his trips to Iraq just in the few months since he took the job have convinced him momentum has shifted. Fallon was formerly the head of U.S Pacific Command based at Camp Smith on O'ahu.

"In the less than six months I've been in this job, I have seen a substantial change and it gives me some significant optimism that this place may just work out the way we had envisioned, or some had envisioned, when the tasks were undertaken," Fallon said in remarks to the Commonwealth Club of California, a public affairs forum.

"What's going on now in the security business in Iraq is that things are substantially improved," he said. "By almost any measure, any statistical analysis of what's happened in the last few months, there's been an improvement."

Fallon was in Anbar province on Monday when Bush visited there, and was in Iraq just a week before that. He reported hearing no gunfire in restive Diyala province on another recent trip, where once it had been constant.

He also said local Sunni tribal leaders had decided to join with the Americans because they were tired of violence wiping out their families. Bush said much the same on Monday.

And, like Bush on Monday, Fallon said that violence in Anbar had fallen steadily in recent months.

Fallon's comment came amid indications that Bush appears set on maintaining the central elements of the policy he announced in January. Bush's senior advisers on Iraq have recommended he stand by his current war strategy, and he is unlikely to order more than a symbolic cut in troops before the end of the year, administration officials told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

The president is to officially receive a report on Iraq next week.

During Fallon's remarks here, a protester twice unfurled a small placard that said "out of Iraq." The silent protest did not appear to affect Fallon's speech, nor did a larger banner that read "No war on Iran."

A police officer watched as Commonwealth Club officials gently tried to stop the protests, but he did not intervene. An aide to Fallon hovered nervously nearby until the Iran banner came down.

Asked whether the United States will likely attack Iran, Fallon said, "no plan to attack Iran."

In a brief interview with The Associated Press, Fallon said he had not seen an ACLU compilation of military investigative documents that showed a pattern of troops failing to understand and follow the rules that govern interrogations and deadly actions.

But he said he was confident the vast majority of U.S. troops follow the rules.

"We give very strict guidance to our people regarding the rules of engagement and their behaviors," he said. "The overwhelming majority of our people act in a manner that would be very representative of the desires of this country, and do things that are the right things to do in virtually every case."

Fallon said he had personally "passed out specific guidance to our forces recently, particularly in Afghanistan" on such matters.