Post by pledm on Dec 15, 2008 11:19:44 GMT -5
Bush shoe thrower cools his heels in jail
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- An Iraqi TV reporter who threw his shoes at U.S. President George W. Bush during a news conference remained in custody Monday while judicial officials decided whether to charge him with assault.
President Bush, left, ducks a thrown shoe as Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki tries to protect him Sunday.
President Bush, left, ducks a thrown shoe as Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki tries to protect him Sunday.
A government official, who requested anonymity, said Muntadhar al-Zaidi, a journalist for Al-Baghdadi, was being tested for alcohol and drugs to determine his state of mind.
Al-Zaidi whipped off his shoes and flung them at Bush during the U.S. leader's unannounced stop in Baghdad on Sunday. He called the protest a "farewell kiss" to a "dog" who launched the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Bush swiftly ducked the flying footwear and told reporters aboard Air Force One afterward that the "bizarre" incident was not a sign of popular opinion in Iraq. Video Watch Bush duck to avoid flying footwear ยป
"I don't know what the guy said, but I saw his sole," he joked.
Al-Zaidi's arrest drew an angry protest on Monday in Baghdad's Sadr City by followers of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and calls from his Iraq-owned, Egyptian-based network for his release.
Al-Baghdadia demanded its reporter's release late Sunday "in accordance with democracy and freedom of expression Iraqis were promised by the new era and American authorities," it said in a statement read on air. The channel also ran what it said were messages of support from viewers in a crawl at the bottom of the screen.
"What Muntadhar did represents the biggest test for the United States and the Iraqi government -- if they release him or continue detaining him," network spokesman Abdul Hamid al-Saeh said.
The network said any actions taken against the reporter would be reminiscent of the "violent acts, random arrests, mass graves and personal and public freedoms taken away" during the rule of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein. It called on other Arab countries and journalists to support al-Zaidi's release.
Bush appeared to take the incident in stride, saying during the news conference that "I didn't feel the least bit threatened by it." Later, he referred to Al-Baghdadi as a "Baathist TV station" -- a reference to Hussein's now-banned ruling party.
But al-Saleh told CNN: "We are against Saddam Hussein, and at the same time we want Iraq's liberation from the Americans."
Al-Zaidi -- in his late 20s -- is from Sadr City, the Shiite neighborhood where angry protesters marched to demand the journalist's release, protest the U.S.-Iraqi security agreement, and urge the withdrawal of American troops.
Hurling any object is a form of hostility, but in Arab culture, throwing a shoe or striking someone with one is the ultimate form of contempt.
And the demonstration, the imagery of the shoe-throwing incident conjured anger and pride.
Calling Bush the devil, a Sadrist cleric addressing the crowd condemned the visit of "the leader of evil and terror" and said the president was humiliated in a visit that was meant to celebrate achievements.
Protesters placed a shoe atop a pole with a note saying "Go Out USA."
Demonstrators chanted: "Listen Bush, we got you out with a pair of shoes," "if we run out of ammunition we will hit them with shoes," and "America out now."
They carried banners calling for al-Zaidi's release and hoisted flags and posters of Shiite clerics.
One demonstrator described Bush as a "terrorist ... whose hands are covered in children and women's blood. Another pounded a U.S. flag with his shoe, and the flag was torched by protesters. A third pretended to auction the shoe that hit Bush.
Another reporter who works for al-Baghdadia had a more somber reaction to al-Zaidi's predicament.
He said his colleague awoke daily to the cries of widows and funerals and U.S. airstrikes on Sadr City.
Bush later traveled to Afghanistan, where he said U.S.-led forces would maintain their pursuit of Taliban militants, but warned there would be no quick victory.
"They can hide, but we can stay on the hunt," Bush said. "We will keep the pressure on them, because it's in the peaceful people of Afghanistan's interest just like it's in the interest of this country.
"Are there still difficult days ahead? Absolutely," he said. "But are conditions a lot better than they were than they were in 2001? Unquestionably, undoubtedly they're better."
Afghanistan was the original front in the war on the al Qaeda terrorist network launched after the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington. A U.S. invasion swiftly deposed the Taliban, the Islamic militia that had harboured al Qaeda, but the leaders of both movements escaped and remain on the run.
Nearly 40,000 U.S. and NATO troops are still in Afghanistan, with the Pentagon expected to shift another three U.S. brigades into the fight by summer. The war has cost the coalition 1,018 dead to date, including 624 Americans.
Iraq has been far more costly to the United States with more than 4,200 Americans killed and costs estimates of more than $600 billion.
But violence has declined sharply over the past 18 months as former Sunni Arab insurgents turned against Islamic jihadists loyal to al Qaeda in Iraq, who were blamed for some of the worst attacks of the 5-year-old war.
About 130,000 U.S. troops remain in Iraq, but a recent agreement between Washington and Baghdad calls for American combat units to be out of Iraqi cities next June and to leave the country entirely by the end of 2011.
A U.S.-led army invaded Iraq in March 2003 after months of accusations from the Bush administration that it was harboring weapons of mass destruction.
U.S. inspectors later found that Iraq had dismantled its weapons programs in the 1990s, though it had tried to conceal some weapons-related research from the United Nations.
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Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's government collapsed after less than a month of fighting, and Hussein was executed in 2006. But an insurgency against U.S. troops, led mostly by Sunnis in northern and western Iraq, spread quickly and embroiled the United States and its allies in years of bloodshed.
Estimates of the Iraqi death toll range from nearly 90,000 to the hundreds of thousands.
