Security responsibility for Anbar province - once Iraq's most dangerous - could transfer to Iraqi forces by March, a senior US general said.
Maj Gen Walter Gaskin of the US Marines said a fall in violence had paved the way for handing Anbar to Iraqi control.
In Washington, the visiting Iraqi defence minister said Iraqi forces may be ready to take responsibility for all remaining areas of the country by 2009.
Nine of 18 Iraqi provinces remain to be handed over to Iraqi control.
Maj Gen Gaskin, commander of around 35,000 marines in Anbar, said the planned security handover in the region did not mean US troops would leave the province altogether.
In Washington, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates did not mention plans to hand over the province but told reporters: "Anbar, once considered a stronghold of al-Qaeda, has been reclaimed for the Iraqi people."
His visiting Iraqi counterpart, Abdul Qader Obeidi, said Iraqi forces could take over security for the entire country by next year.
"In the past we were behind the multi-national forces, then we fought side-by-side and shoulder-to-shoulder and now we are in front of the American forces," he said.
The western province of Anbar was once the base of the Sunni Arab insurgency in Iraq but it has witnessed a turnaround in the last 18 months.
Security improvements have been credited to the flourishing of Sunni tribal neighbourhood militias, some including former insurgents, which have teamed up with US forces to fight al-Qaeda in Iraq.
Analysts say President George W Bush's surge strategy of injecting an extra 30,000 US troops into Iraq last year has also helped reduce violence.
(BBC)
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