President Bush yesterday was the sole survivor of two shoes hurled at him by an angry Iraqi journalist in Baghdad.
“This is a farewell kiss, you dog,” TV correspondent Muntadar al-Zeidi shouted as he hurled one of his shoes at Bush in the middle of a news conference.
Bush ducked as the shoe zoomed over his head and crashed into the wall behind the podium.
Arabs Hail Shoe Throwing Journalist
PHOTOS: Iraqi Throws Shoes At President Bush
Just as the stunned president regained his composure, al-Zeidi threw his second shoe, shouting, “This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq.”
Bush barely flinched, the shoe just missing the right side of his head, as Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki stuck out his right hand to shield him.
That shoe, too, hit the wall behind the men.
Bush waved off his lead Secret Service agent, who was prepared to rush him out of the room.
Secret Service and Iraqi security agents subdued al-Zeidi, who works for Al-Baghdadia, an Iraqi-owned TV station based in Cairo. They wrestled him to the ground and dragged him out of the room as he moaned and screamed. A trail of fresh blood could be seen on the carpet.
Colleagues said al-Zeidi was kidnapped by Shiite militiamen last year and later released.
Throwing shoes at someone, or showing the soles of one’s shoes, is a supreme insult in Arab culture. After Saddam Hussein’s statue was toppled in Baghdad in April 2003, members of the crowd beat its face with their soles.
As al-Zeidi continued screaming from another room, the president said, “I didn’t feel the least bit threatened.”
He quipped, “That was a size-10 shoe he threw at me, you may want to know.”
Shrugging, he added, “So what if the guy threw his shoe at me? It’s one way to gain attention.”
Al-Zeidi, sitting in the second row of seats for reporters, was about 12 feet away from the president.
Bush was about to shake hands with the Iraqi leader when the shoes and insults started flying.
The president had flown secretly to Iraq on his fourth, and presumably final, trip to the war-torn country to mark the recent passage of a security pact that paves the way for US troops to pull out of Iraqi cities by next July and withdraw completely by the end of 2011.
It was also meant to hail the recent sharp decline in sectarian violence that had plagued Iraq since the US invasion in March 2003.
Asked whether he had come to Iraq on a victory lap, the president replied, “There’s still more work to be done. The war is not over.”
Fityan Mohammed, Al-Baghdadia’s manager in Baghdad, said he had no idea what prompted his reporter’s attack.
The station issued a statement on the air last night asking the Iraqi government to release al-Zeidi “to spare his life.”
Later, moving from one war zone to another, Bush flew secretly from Baghdad to Kabul, landing under cover of darkness for talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and meetings with US troops.