What a joke attacking the most powerful Man on planet earth
- with shoes! This is Iraqis Weapon of Mass Destruction - My
Foot!
AP - On a whirlwind trip shrouded in secrecy and marred by
dissent, President George W. Bush on Sunday hailed progress in the
wars that define his presidency and got a size-10 reminder of his
unpopularity when a man hurled two shoes at him during a news
conference in Iraq.
"This is your farewell kiss, you dog!" shouted the
protester in Arabic, later identified as Muntadar al-Zeidi, a
correspondent for Al-Baghdadia television, an Iraqi-owned station
based in Cairo, Egypt.
Bush ducked both shoes as they whizzed past his head and
landed with a thud against the wall behind him.
"It was a size 10," Bush joked later.
The U.S. president visited the Iraqi capital just 37 days before
he hands the war off to his successor, Barack Obama, who has
pledged to end it. The president wanted to highlight a drop in
violence and to celebrate a recent U.S.-Iraq security agreement,
which calls for U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraq by the end of
2011.
"The war is not over," Bush said, adding that "it is decisively
on it's way to being won."
Bush then flew to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan for a rally
with more than 1,000 U.S. and foreign troops. "Afghanistan is a
dramatically different country than it was eight years ago," he
said. "We are making hopeful gains."
In many ways, the unannounced trip was a victory lap without a
clear victory. Nearly 150,000 U.S. troops remain in Iraq fighting a
war that is intensely disliked across the globe. More than 4,209
members of the U.S. military have died in the conflict, which has
cost U.S. taxpayers $576 billion since it began five years and nine
months ago.
There are about 31,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan now, and
commanders have called for up to 20,000 more. The need is
especially great in southern Afghanistan, long a stronghold of the
Taliban and the place where recent spikes in violence have proven
the insurgency capable of reasserting itself.
Polls show most Americans believe the U.S. erred in invading
Iraq in 2003. Bush ordered the nation into war against Saddam
Hussein's Iraq while citing intelligence claiming the Mideast
nation harbored weapons of mass destruction. The weapons were never
found, the intelligence was discredited, Bush's credibility with
U.S. voters plummeted and Saddam was captured and executed.
"There is still more work to be done," Bush said after his
meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
It was at that point the journalist stood up and threw a shoe
from about 20 feet away. Bush ducked, and it narrowly missed his
head. The second shoe came quickly, and Bush ducked again while
several Iraqis grabbed the man and dragged him to the floor.
In Iraqi culture, throwing shoes at someone is a sign of
contempt. Iraqis whacked a statue of Saddam with their shoes after
U.S. marines toppled it to the ground following the 2003
invasion.
White House press secretary Dana Perino suffered an eye injury
when she was hit in the face with a microphone during the melee.
Bush brushed off the incident. "So what if a guy threw his shoe at
me?" he said.
Al-Maliki, who spoke before the incident, praised postwar
progress: "Today, Iraq is moving forward in every field."
After the news conference, the president took a 15-minute
helicopter ride through dark skies over Baghdad to Camp Victory.
Telling hundreds of troops he was "heading into retirement," Bush
blamed Saddam for the 2003 invasion and said, "America is safer and
more secure" than it was before the war.
Air Force One, the president's jetliner, landed at Baghdad
International Airport in the afternoon local time after a secretive
Saturday night departure from Washington. In a sign of security
gains in this war zone, Bush received a formal arrival ceremony _ a
flourish absent in his three earlier trips.
Bush soon began a rapid-fire series of meetings with top Iraqi
leaders.
He met first with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and the
country's two vice presidents, Tariq al-Hashemi and Adel
Abdul-Mahdi, at the ornate, marble-floored Salam Palace along the
shores of the Tigris River.
Later, Bush's motorcade pulled out the heavily fortified Green
Zone and crossed over the Tigris so he could meet al-Maliki at the
prime minister's palace. The two leaders signed a ceremonial copy
of the security agreement.
The Bush administration and even White House critics credit last
year's military buildup with the security gains in Iraq. Last
month, attacks fell to the lowest monthly level since the war began
in 2003.
Still, it's unclear what will happen when the U.S. troops leave.
While violence has slowed in Iraq, attacks continue, especially in
the north.
It was Bush's last trip to the war zone before Obama takes
office Jan. 20. Obama, a Democrat, has promised he will bring all
U.S. combat troops back home from Iraq a little over a year into
his term, as long as commanders agree a withdrawal would not
endanger American personnel or Iraq's security. Obama has said the
drawdown in Iraq would allow him to shift troops and bolster the
U.S. presence in Afghanistan.
The new U.S.-Iraqi security pact calls for all American troops
to be withdrawn by the end of 2011, in two stages. The first stage
begins next year, when U.S. troops pull back from Baghdad and other
Iraqi cities by the end of June. Gen. Raymond Odierno, the top U.S.
commander in Iraq, said Saturday that even after that summer
deadline, some U.S. troops will remain in Iraqi cities.
Journalists and staff who made the 10 1/2-hour trip to Iraq with
the president agreed to tell almost no one about the plans, and the
White House released false schedules detailing activities planned
for Bush in Washington on Sunday.
