Farewell Iraq tour marred by shoe assault
Ap, Afp, Baghdad/ Washington
An Iraqi official says a reporter who threw his shoes at President Bush is being held for questioning by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s guards and is being tested for alcohol and drugs.
The official tells The Associated Press that Muntadar al-Zeidi is being interrogated over whether anybody paid him to throw his shoes at Bush during a news conference Sunday.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not supposed to talk to media.
Saddam Hussein’s former lawyer said on Monday that he was forming a team to defend the Iraqi journalist who hurled his shoes at US President George W Bush during his farewell visit to Baghdad.
”So far around 200 Iraqi and other lawyers, including Americans, have expressed willingness to defend the journalist for free,” the Amman-based Khalil al-Dulaimi told AFP.
“I took the decision on Sunday night to defend the man after the incident. I am currently contacting Arab bar associations to form a defence committee.”
An Iraqi television station on Monday demanded the immediate release of one of its journalists who caused a furore when he hurled shoes at visiting Bush.
Zaidi jumped up as Bush was holding a press conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Sunday, shouted “It is the farewell kiss, you dog” and threw two shoes at the US leader.
Bush ducked and the first shoe hit the American and Iraqi flags behind the two leaders, while the second was off target.
Zaidi, a reporter with the Al-Baghdadia channel, which broadcasts from Cairo, was immediately wrestled to the ground by security guards and frogmarched from the room.
“Al-Baghdadia television demands that the Iraqi authorities immediately release their stringer Muntadhar al-Zaidi, in line with the democracy and freedom of expression that the American authorities promised the Iraqi people,” it said in a statement.
In Cairo, Muzhir al-Khafaji, programmeming director for the television channel, described Zaidi as a “proud Arab and an open-minded man.”
“We fear for his safety,” he added.
Meanwhile President Bush wrapped up a whirlwind trip to two war zones yesterday that in many ways was a victory lap without a clear victory.
A signature event occurred when an Iraqi reporter hurled two shoes at Bush, declaring: “This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq.”
The 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 US-Iraq security agreement, which calls for US troops to withdraw from Iraq by the end of 2011.
“The war is not over,” Bush said, but “it is decisively on its way to being won.”
Bush then travelled to Afghanistan where he spoke to US soldiers and Marines at a hangar on the tarmac at Bagram Air Base. The rally for over a thousand military personnel took place in the dark, cold pre-dawn hours. Bush was greeted by loud cheers from the troops.
“Afghanistan is a dramatically different country than it was eight years ago,” he said. “We are making hopeful gains.”
But the president’s message on progress in the region was having trouble competing with the videotaped image of the angry Iraqi who hurled his shoes at Bush in a near-miss, shouting in Arabic, “This is your farewell kiss, you dog!”
Courtesy: thedailystar.net
