From: Andrew Johnson
Date: 2008-12-15 10:27:20
www.youtube.com/watc… Iraqi Journalist Insults President BushVideo Baghdad – An Iraqi television journalist hurled two shoes at President Bush on Sunday during a joint news conference Bush was holding with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki to mark the signing of a U.S.-Iraq security agreement. Posted December 14, 2008 The Iraqi journalist who was sitting in the third row ‘jumped up’ shouting “It is the farewell kiss, you dog,” the report says. See also : In Praise Of Muntather Al Zaidi
Bush had just finished his prepared remarks in which he said the security agreement was made possible by the U.S. surge of troops to Iraq last year, when the journalist, Muthathar al Zaidi, pulled his shoes off and hurled them at the president. “This is a goodbye kiss, you dog,” Zaidi shouted. Bush dodged the shoes and was not struck. Bodyguards quickly wrestled Zaidi to the floor and hauled him, kicking and screaming, from the room. Two other Iraqi journalists were briefly detained after one of them called Zaidi’s actions “courageous.” Bush shrugged off the incident. “I didn’t feel the least bit threatened by it,” he said. Zaidi works for an Iraqi satellite television station based in Cairo. Friends said he covered the U.S. bombing of Baghdad’s Sadr City area earlier this year and had been “emotionally influenced” by the destruction he’d seen. They also said he’d been kidnapped in 2007 and held for three days by Shiite Muslim gunmen.
