BAGHDAD, 28 November 2003 — US President George W. Bush secretly traveled to Baghdad and paid a surprise Thanksgiving Day visit to US troops yesterday in what is seen as a morale-boosting mission amid mounting casualties.
In an elaborate plan to ensure his security, Bush slipped away from his Texas ranch on Wednesday night, arrived in Iraq yesterday and spent 2-1/2 hours with the troops.
“I bring a message on behalf of America: We thank you for your service, we are proud of you, and America stands solidly behind you,” Bush told about 600 soldiers, who were stunned to see the president emerge from a side door in a military mess hall at Baghdad International Airport.
Bush dropped plans to eat the traditional turkey dinner with his wife and family in order to visit US troops in the Iraqi capital, making him the first US president ever to visit Iraq.
The troops, mostly from the US Army’s 1st Armored Division and the 82nd Airborne, had no idea Bush would be there.
In an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat last week, Bush appeared to rule out an imminent visit to Iraq. Saudis therefore reacted with surprise to news of Bush’s appearance in Baghdad, which also gave rise to speculation.
“Perhaps as commander in chief he feels it’s his duty to see the troops,” suggested a Jeddah businessman.
But Jeddah resident Abu Baker was more cynical. “It looks like a carefully planned publicity stunt to me,” he said.
The trip came as the head of Iraq’s Governing Council said yesterday a new US-backed plan to hand sovereignty back to Iraqis will be changed after objections from a senior Shiite leader.
The US-installed council’s head said the plan would be modified to ensure a central role for Islam and to take account of the cleric’s wish that a planned transitional assembly be elected directly.
There was no immediate comment from Washington, which said earlier it would send thousands more Marines to Iraq next year to fight the resistance it blames for attacks on US-led occupying forces.
“The agreement remains, but there’s to be an appendix, with other texts. The agreement is developing,” Governing Council President Jalal Talabani told reporters after meeting Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani in Najaf.
Sistani’s approval is seen as crucial to getting Iraq’s 60 percent Shiite majority to back the political timetable. The elderly cleric rarely makes public pronouncements on politics but most Iraqi Shiites look to him for guidance. Under the US-backed plan, regional caucuses would select an interim assembly by the end of May, and this body would pick a transitional government the following month. The government would take over sovereignty from the US-led administration, formally ending the occupation, although US-led foreign troops were expected to remain.
“(Sistani) requested that the allies make good on the promises they made to Iraqis. He believes, correctly, that this is democracy,” Talabani said. “There’s an appendix that says Islam is the religion of the majority and it must be respected and considered a main source for the constitution.”
While planning for the transition, the United States said it would send thousands more Marines next year to fight the resistance it blames for violence against the occupying forces.
Guerrillas fired a rocket-propelled grenade at Italy’s Baghdad embassy overnight.
No one was hurt in the attack, which came two weeks after 19 Italians died in a suicide blast in southern Iraq, in Italy’s worst military death toll since World War II.
Two US soldiers and a Polish Army officer — the first victim from that country — were killed in separate attacks in Iraq, it was announced yesterday.
A US soldier was killed in the early hours when his truck drove over a mine near Husaiba, an Iraqi-Syrian border crossing, the US military command announced.
— Additional input from agencies
