While media and Congress debate a "surge" of new troops in Iraq, apparently President Bush has already launched it, drawing on a small number of "advance troops" from North Carolina's 82nd Airborne Division. ABC news reports:

ABC News has learned that the "surge" Bush is expected to announce in a prime time speech tonight has already begun. Ninety advance troops from the 82nd Airborne Division arrived in Baghdad today.

An additional battalion of roughly 100 troops from the same division are expected to arrive in Baghdad Thursday.

It is the first small wave of troops in a new White House strategy that is expected to put more than 20,000 additional U.S. troops on the ground in Iraq and likely require new call-ups of the National Guard.