Officials said the fifth and final brigade of the troop surge has arrived in Baghdad. They said the brigade would be fully operational by mid-July for the counter-insurgency mission in the Iraqi capital.

"We are starting to see a shift in momentum that comes with having additional forces on the ground," Brig. Gen. Perry Wiggins, deputy operations director at the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said according to Middle East Newsline.

"We're experiencing increased levels of support from local Iraqis throughout the other areas of Iraq," Wiggins said.

The surge has been accompanied by a sharp rise in U.S. casualties. The U.S. military has reported 119 casualties for May 2007, the highest monthly toll since November 2004.

The U.S. military has added about 21,000 combat soldiers to stabilize Iraq. Officials said the additional troops would be based in Baghdad and in the Anbar province near the Syrian border.

"What we're trying to do through the clear-hold-and-retain [strategy] is take those particular areas away from the insurgents and Al Qaida, make it more difficult for them to travel, at least freely," Wiggins told a May 30 briefing. "So some of those forces will stretch in Baghdad."

Officials said the deployment of the last brigade would prompt a U.S. military study of progress in efforts to stabilize Iraq. In September 2007, they said, U.S. military commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, would update military and civilian leaders on the Baghdad security plan.

The U.S. military has sent the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit to Anbar as part of 8,000 troops that would begin operations in Iraq. Other U.S. units involved in the surge include the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division, Second Brigade, and the 3rd Combat Aviation Brigade.

The Marines would be joined by Iraq Army troops from Anbar. Officials said 500 Iraqi soldiers were ready to graduate from the basic training facility in Habbaniyah. They said the next graduating class would consist of 1,000 cadets.

"The full impact of the surge, in my mind, will not be able to be assessed until about August timeframe, and that's when they'll be in place 60 days," Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, the No. 2 U.S. commander in Iraq, told a briefing on Thursday. "So, that'll be the first time I'll be able to make a real initial assessment of the true effect of the surge."