Bush talks turkey
American pundits debated whether Bush's top secret, brief visit to Baghdad airport last week was an act of heroism, or an indication of failure, reports Khaled Dawoud from Washington
Many Americans were sitting around their tables preparing for their heavy Thanksgiving lunch, when United States television networks suddenly started playing pictures of US President George W Bush giving a speech to soldiers. Facing criticism that he was not giving enough time to meet with families of the 130,000 US soldiers serving in Iraq, there was nothing unusual about the president deciding to spend the revered American holiday with his troops. But soon, subtitles on television screens stunned viewers as they read: "Bush in Baghdad".
Only a few hours earlier, a White House spokeswoman told reporters that the president would spend the holiday in his ranch in Crawford, Texas, perhaps making calls to families of soldiers who lost their loved ones in Iraq. US officials later said that Bush's top-secret visit to Iraq was actually in the works since mid- October, but only the president and a very small number of aides were involved. Security was extremely tight and reporters were not allowed to report on the visit until the presidential plane departed from Baghdad's airport.
Since the fall of the former regime on 9 April, Baghdad's airport has been a dangerous place because of attacks by missiles and rocket propelled grenades (RPGs) against US planes and helicopters. These attacks have grown more successful in recent weeks, and Bush's arrival came a day after Iraqi fighters hit a plane operated by civilian shipping company DHL on take off, forcing it to turn back for an emergency landing.
Unprecedented measures were taken to ensure the secrecy of Bush's trip. Only a few White House correspondents were chosen to accompany the president, and they were informed of the mission only 90 minutes before it was scheduled to take place. White House officials asked the selected reporters, including one from The Washington Post and one from Bush's supposed favoured news network, Fox TV, not to tell their editors or their families.
Mike Allen, The Washington Post White House correspondent, said that upon his arrival at the airport to board Air Force One, they were asked to hand over the batteries of their mobile phones. Other reporters who joined the trip said their phones were confiscated.
Bush himself chose to drive in disguise to Dallas Airport, together with national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice. Dressed in jeans and wearing baseball caps, they drove to the airport without the usual, heavily guarded motorcade. Bush experienced heavy traffic for the first time in almost three years.
When Bush arrived at the airport, he glanced at the reporters, made the sign of a mobile phone, and then delivered a stern warning that trip must remain secret, Allen explained.
On approaching Baghdad airport, Air Force One switched off its lights to land in total darkness. Bush was reportedly in the cockpit as the plane landed, a White House spokesman said, clearly seeking to bolster Bush's image as a hero taking great risks.
US officials said this was the first visit by an American president to Iraq. But many commentators later questioned the claim, asking whether a brief visit to the capital's airport, where he met only four selected Iraqi members of the US-handpicked Governing Council, could be considered an actual visit to the occupied nation. Others wondered whether such drastic security measures actually confirmed the failure of the US troops to secure Iraq nearly eight months after occupying the country.
Bush critics dubbed the visit as nothing but a "campaign stunt", especially after the president's first obvious show of heroism, when he landed in a military aircraft aboard USS carrier Abraham Lincoln on 1 May to declare the end of major combat in Iraq, clearly backfired. On that day, and with a big banner that read "Mission Accomplished" in the background, Bush celebrated victory with the soldiers coming back from the battleground. But since then, more American soldiers were killed in Iraq than those killed during the three weeks of actual fighting between 20 March and 9 April. Nearly 200 US soldiers have been killed over the past seven months, compared to 153 killed during actual combat. November was the bloodiest month in terms of US casualties since major combat ended, said a Pentagon spokesman, with a total of 81 soldiers killed.
While the president's media advisers clearly staged the spectacular 1 May landing to use the pictures in Bush's re-election campaign, they ended up providing good material to his Democratic opponents, who aired the same footage to justify claims that the president had rushed to declare victory, while in fact the US was in for a long, hard slog.
Scores of pictures of Bush posing for photographs with the soldiers, personally serving them dinner and exchanging jokes would indeed be good propaganda for the president if the situation in Iraq was heading towards stability. However, as many observers noted, with rising number of US casualties and growing suspicions over the actual motives that led to the war in the first place, the campaign backfired.
In his speech, Bush vowed that the US would not hit and run, and would stay in Iraq until the mission is accomplished. He reiterated his argument that Iraq was the "central front" in the war against terror, and that US soldiers were confronting their enemies in Baghdad instead of facing them in US cities. Barely one day after the commander of the US army in Iraq, General Ricardo Sanchez, declared a significant decrease in Iraqi attacks against US troops, owing to heavy US bombing of hideouts of suspected fighters. But facts on the ground prove the fallacy of this claim.
In just two days, Saturday and Sunday, Iraqi fighters killed seven Spanish intelligence officers, two Japanese diplomats and two Korean civilians working in a US-funded reconstruction project. It was a deadly blow to US claims that the situation was improving, and to its desire to involve more nations in the reconstruction effort.
The US plan to transfer power to Iraqis by next June is also facing serious obstacles, with influential Shi'ite religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Sistani, insisting that any new Iraqi government that would draft a constitution must be elected directly by the Iraqi people. The US shies from holding direct elections at this stage, fearing it would produce an extremist Islamic government. The Coalition Provisional Authority, headed by Paul Bremer, suggested instead organising smaller gatherings for local councils handpicked by a committee appointed by the Governing Council. Each would send delegates to a proposed national assembly that will, in turn, appoint an interim government.
Meanwhile, and as most influential US media companies and television networks were excluded from Bush's brief trip to Iraq, the coverage of the visit was largely unfavourable. The New York Times wondered whether it was ethical to ask reporters to lie to their editors, and whether the media was actually being manipulated to serve Bush's political agenda. For days after the visit, White House correspondents sarcastically ended their reports by wondering whether Bush was actually where his advisers were saying, or had headed off on another secret trip.
