Posted on 11/27/2003 9:42:19 AM PST by PeteFromMontana
Bush Makes Surprise Visit to Iraq Email this Story
Nov 27, 12:27 PM (ET)
By TERENCE HUNT
(AP) U.S. Army Specialist Thomas Huffstatler, left standing, of Summit Ark., standing, Sgt. Stephen... Full Image
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - President Bush made a surprise Thanksgiving visit to American troops in Baghdad Thursday, flying secretly to violence-scarred Iraq to thank U.S. forces for serving there. It was the first trip ever by an American president to Iraq - a mission tense with concern about his safety.
"You are defending the American people from danger and we are grateful," Bush told some 600 soldiers who were stunned and delighted by his appearance.
The president's plane - its lights darkened and windows closed to minimzie chances of making it a target - landed under a crescent moon at Bagdad International Airport.
Bush flew in on the plane he most often uses, and White House officials went to extraordinary lengths to keep the trip a secret, fearing its disclosure would prompt terrorist attempts to kill him.
The news of Bush's trip was not released until he was in the air on the way back to the United States. "If this breaks while we're in the air we're turning around," White House communications director Dan Bartlett told reporters on the flight to Baghdad.
Security fears were heightened by an attack last Saturday in which a missile struck a DHL cargo plane, forcing it to make an emergency landing at the airport with its wing aflame.
Bush spent only about two hours on the ground, limiting his visit to the airport dinner with U.S. forces. The troops had been told that the VIP guests would be L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator in Iraq, and Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of coalition forces in Iraq.
In a ruse staged in the name of security, the White House had put out word that Bush would be spending Thanksgiving at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, with his wife, Laura, his parents and other family members. Even the dinner menu was announced.
Instead, Bush slipped away from his home without notice Wednesday evening and flew to Washington to pick up aides and a handful of reporters sworn to secrecy. Plans called for the trip to be abandoned if word had leaked out in advance.
Within the White House only a handful of senior aides knew about the trip, officials said.
Security fears were underscored by regular attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq. More than five dozen U.S. troops were killed by hostile fire in November, more than any other month since the end of major combat in Iraq on May 1. Early this week, a U.S. military official, Col. William Darley, said attacks peaked at more than 40 per day about two weeks ago and have since dropped to about 30 per day.
The violence persisted Thursday as the president was en route here.
Insurgents fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the Italian mission in Baghdad, damaging the building but causing no injuries, the U.S. military said. Also, a U.S. military convoy came under attack on the main highway west of Baghdad near the town of Abu Ghraib, witnesses said. And in the northern city of Mosul, unidentified gunmen shot dead an Iraqi police sergeant, said Brig. Gen. Muwaffaq Mohammed.
Since operations began, nearly 300 U.S. service members have died of hostile action, including 183 since May 1 when Bush declared an end to major fighting.
Bush's father visited U.S. troops at a desert outpost in Saudi Arabia on Thanksgiving Day 1990, in the runup to the Gulf War. "We won't pull punches. We are not here on some exercise. And we're not walking away until our mission is done, until the invader is out of Kuwait," he told the troops. At one p oint, he climbed into a bunker to chat with troops.
Bush's father shared lunch with U.S. troops 65 miles from Kuwait, occupied at the time by Saddam Hussein's forces. George H.W. Bush had been the first U.S. president to visit a front-line area since President Nixon went to Vietnam in 1969.
I think she ranks in the top five.
LOL! You're going to fit in with this crowd pretty well.
HAPPY THANKSGIVING, DEMSLOL ! I bet they are consuming record numbers of Alka-Seltzer today ! ha! ha!
He was watching TV, we weren't. Man, what a GREAT Thanksgiving surprise!
hehe, sinator hillary! must be furious at being upstaged!
Howdy and thanks ! A great day indeed. Much to be thankful for. My family, our troops, our country and President Bush. A great Thanksgiving !I hope things are okay in your part of the hemisphere ...
Among them:
--Japanese TV on all networks and on the web, in Japanese, has this as the NUMBER ONE NEWS ISSUE, and Bush appears to be coming off as a bold hero, giving Japanese more courage and strength to stay in the fight with us.
--Kim Jong-il, North Korean dictator, in Pyongyang, who views Bush as his direct adversarial counterpart, must be absolutely defecating bricks in Pyongyang. This will scare him and many many other tyrants.
Phenominal. Absolutely historic. Hillary Clinton, all the Democrat candidates and particularly Wesley Clark, must also be palpitating and blacking out.
Can anyone imagine the D.U. threads at this time? Wonder if they are all on a Jim Jones Kool-Aid Watch over there....
HOW IT ALL WENT DOWN: DETAILED REPORT OF BUSH'S SECRET TRIP
(a pool reporter's private notes)
Drudge Report ^ | 11/27/03 | Mike Allen
Posted on 11/27/2003 4:10 PM PST by Maria S
The President left Waco secretly Wednesday at 8:25 p.m. Eastern (7:25 p.m. Texan) with a small pool, stopped at Andrews to pick up a few staff and a few more poolers, change planes and then head to Baghad. Both flights were what we think of as the normal Air Force One, Boeing 747 with the normal marking. The President landed in darkness at Baghdad International Airport at 9:31 a.m. Washington time (5:32 p.m. local) on Thursday, Nov. 27, Thanksgiving Day. He took off at 12:03 p.m. Eastern time, so was in Baghdad roughly 2.5 hours.
The staff aimed to keep the trip secret until after he had taken off from Baghdad ? no filing was permitted from the site, by the pool or by locals. The President landed with barely a sliver of a moon. He was already in a white Land Rover or Land Cruiser by the time the pool reached the Tarmac. The staff said the motorcade was 12 vehicles plus a military ambulance. Short motorcade of less than five minutes through a blacked out, rutty part of the airport, which looks like a military base...
CLICK HERE for the rest of that LONG (but wonderful) report
I like. Someone today called them "DimRATS." I like that one too.
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