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Monday, December 15, 2008

Bush arrives in Afghanistan on surprise visit


Bush arrives in Afghanistan on surprise visit
A Shoe attack to BUSH

(AFP) - US President George W. Bush arrived in Afghanistan Monday, after a making a farewell visit to Iraq, according to the White House.

Bush's plane landed in darkness at Baghram Air Base outside Kabul, a reporter traveling with him said.

The US president was to hold talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and address US troops during the visit.

Shoe attack

A journalist hurled two shoes at Bush on his farewell visit to Iraq, highlighting hostility still felt toward the outgoing US leader who acknowledged that the war is still not won.

Muntazer al-Zaidi jumped up as Bush held a press conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, shouted "It is the farewell kiss, you dog" and threw his footwear.

The president lowered his head and the first shoe hit the American and Iraqi flags behind the two leaders. The second was off target.

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. "This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq."

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.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFX-dKpcDz8