US. Vice President Dick Cheney, an architect of the US-led invasion of Iraq, on Monday hailed the changes in Iraq as “phenomenal and changes”, during his  visit here to assess the success of  troop build-up five years after the war began.

Cheney said, he sensed “phenomenal changes” since his last visit 10 months ago, and described security gains as “dramatic”.

Cheney arrived as Republican candidate John McCain was meeting Iraqi leaders as part of Senate Armed Services Committee fact-finding mission. Like McCain, Cheney is in Iraq as part of a wider tour to the Middle East. Cheney will also visit Saudi Arabia, Jerusalem, the Palestinian territories, Turkey and Oman on a nine-day tour.

Both men have been staunch supporters of US troop build-up that Washington says helped drag Iraq back from the brink of an all-out sectarian civil war between majority Shi’ite and minority Sunni Muslims who were dominant under Saddam.

“I’m happy to say Americans are more and more realising the success of this strategy of the surge,” McCain, referring to the build-up, told US soldiers in volatile Mosul in Iraq’s north on Sunday.

On his arrival in Baghdad, Cheney also met General David Petraeus, the commander of US forces in Iraq. He last visited Baghdad in May 2007, a month before the deployment of an extra 30,000 troops was completed.

The US military says attacks across Iraq have fallen by 60 per cent since last June, when the troop build-up was completed, and says a spike in violence since January is not a trend.

Neighbourhood security units set up by mainly Sunni Arab tribal leaders and a ceasefire ordered by anti-US Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr for his Mehdi Army militia have also contributed to bringing down violence. However, violence remains a daily threat despite the security gains, according to  the US military.