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.
