In an article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer December 19 by Steven Lee Myers and Alissa J. Rubin of the New York Times datelined Baghdad, they wrote the following:

"President George W. Bush made a valedictory visit Sunday to Iraq, the country that will largely define his legacy, but the trip will more likely be remembered for the unscripted moment when an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at Bush's head and denounced him on live TV as a `dog' who had delivered death and sorrow here from nearly six years of war."

This surprise Baghdad visit represented one of the last trips for Bush in Air Force One.  He was, in effect, racing to Baghdad apparently to celebrate the Iraq and United States security agreement, which commits the U.S. to withdraw all troops by 2011.

The Iraqi journalist Muntader al-Zaidi, 28, a correspondent of Al Baghdadia, an independent Iraqi station, stood up about 12 feet from Bush and shouted in Arabic: