President George W Bush yesterday made a farewell visit to Iraq, a place that defines his presidency, just 37 days before he hands the war off to a successor who has pledged to end it.
An Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes and an insult at Bush, without hitting him, as the US president was shaking hands with the Iraqi premier at his Baghdad office.
As the two leaders met in Nuri al-Maliki's private office, a journalist sitting in the third row jumped up, shouting, "It is the farewell kiss, you dog," and threw his shoes one after the other towards Bush.
Maliki made a protective gesture towards the US president, who ducked and was not hit.
The journalist, Muntazer al-Zaidi from Al-Baghdadia channel which broadcasts from Cairo, was frogmarched from the room by security staff, an AFP journalist said.
Soles of shoes are considered the ultimate insult in Arab culture. After Saddam Hussein's statue was toppled in Baghdad in April 2003, many onlookers beat the statue's face with their soles.
Some Iraqi journalists stood up to apologise.
The White House said Bush ducked to avoid the first shoe, while the second narrowly missed the president.
Bush said: "Thanks for apologising on behalf of the Iraqi people. It doesn't bother me. If you want the facts, it was a size 10 shoe that he threw."
Playing down the incident, the president later added: "I don't know what the guy's cause is... I didn't feel the least bit threatened by it."
Air Force One, Bush's distinctive powder blue-and-white jetliner, landed at Baghdad International Airport in the afternoon local time, after a secretive Saturday night departure from Washington and an 11-hour flight. In a sign of modest security gains in this war zone, Bush was welcomed with a formal arrival ceremony a flourish that was not part of his previous three trips to Iraq.
Bush planned a rapid-fire series of meetings with top Iraqi leaders, including Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. He and Bush were marking the recent security agreement between the two nations.
Bush's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, said the agreement was "a remarkable document unique in the Arab world because it was publicly debated, discussed and adopted by an elected parliament."
Hadley said the trip "shows that we are moving into a different relationship ... with Iraqis rightfully exercising greater sovereignty, we in an increasingly subordinate role."
It was Bush's last trip to the war zone before President-elect Barack Obama takes office Jan. 20. Bush's most recent Iraq stop was over 15 months ago, in September 2007.
After a 10-hour-plus fight, Bush was met at the airport by US Ambassador Ryan Crocker and the top US commander Gen. Raymond Odierno. The president then climbed aboard a helicopter for a five-minute flight to the presidential palace.
Other Iraqi officials on Bush's agenda were Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, the country's two vice presidents, the speaker of the Council of Representatives and the head of the Kurdistan Regional Government Massoud Barzani.
Bush arrived in daylight, a sign of the security gains made in Iraq.
Still, the trip was conducted under heavy security and a strict cloak of secrecy. People traveling with the president agreed to tell almost no one about the plans. The White House tried to avoid raising suspicion about the president's whereabouts by putting out false schedules detailing activities planned for Bush in Washington on Sunday.
Bush's visit came after Defense Secretary Robert Gates' unannounced stop in Iraq on Saturday, at a sprawling military base in the central part of the country. Gates will be the lone Republican holdover from the Bush Cabinet in the Obama administration.