Bush Iraqi shoe attack: Why didn't the Secret Service take a loafer for the president?



They are supposed to be willing to take a bullet for the president.

But why weren't the Secret Service close enough to take a shoe?



Watching video of Sunday's incident where an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at George Bush during a press conference (below), the person who is quickest to react to the attack is Bush - surprisingly nimble on his feet for 62.



And journalist al-Zaidi has time to hurl not one but two shoes at the president before any member of the Secret Service even gets close.

Click below to see the video



President Bush ducks to avoid the incoming 'size 10'

The Iraqi journalist surprises the room as he launches his shoes at Bush

After the second shoe is hurled - and al-Zaidi is being tackled to the ground (note, by journalists, not Secret Service agents) one agent does finally run towards Bush.

But the president then holds his hand up to hold him off, apparently having already had time to ascertain for himself that his life is not in danger.

Had al-Zaidi been armed with anything more lethal than a loafer, U.S. media websites have pointed out, everyone would be asking: What went wrong with the elaborate system that's supposed to protect the president?

Some websites have already argued 'nothing'. The press conference was taking place in Iraq - not, pundits agree, the safest place for George Bush on earth - but journalists were not even aware that the president would be attending the press conference as his trip to Baghdad was unannounced.



A Palestinian man holds a shoe during a demonstration calling for the release of the Iraqi journalist Muntadar al-Zaidi, in Gaza City

The conference was also being given in a secure room where, U.S. media websites such as Salon.com have argued, journalists were presumably taken through security before entering.

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'Unless the security standards are looser in Iraq than they are in Washington (which seems hard to believe), by the time al-Zaidi was close enough to Bush throw anything at him, he'd already gone through a metal detector and had his bag and the contents of his pockets inspected,' commented Salon.com.

'Since he didn't have anything that seemed too dangerous, the Service probably wrote him off as relatively harmless.'

'We'll be our own harshest critic regarding this incident,' Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan told U.S. media publisher McClatchy yesterday, 'and we'll make any appropriate changes to security.'

Donovan said, however, that agents on the scene knew that everyone in attendance had been screened for weapons and that they appeared to have taken the 'appropriate level of action'.

Masked Palestinian militants from the Popular Resistance Committees burn an American flag during the demonstration

However ex-agent Patrick Lennon said: 'I thought they would have responded after the first shoe.



'Thank God, Bush apparently played a little dodge ball when he was younger.



'His reflexes are quick. I was proud of him.'



And, as an editorial in Slate.com has pointed out, the incident has reignited the debate on Iraqi security.



Those against the war are claiming al-Zaidi's attack is ever more proof that the U.S. should never have gone in to Iraq.



However others have pointed out that the fact al-Zaidi was able to launch his attack and survive is testament to the regime change implemented by the United States: Had he thrown his shoes at Saddam Hussein, many claim, he would have been shot on sight.

Al-Zeidi has since been arrested and charged

The brief, unannounced, visit was meant to showcase recent security gains in Iraq, with Air Force One landing in broad daylight instead of under cover at night.



With Al-Zaidi now in military custody and, according to his brother, being beaten by authorities, the strength of that argument may yet be tested.

However he is still being hailed as a hero in the Arab world.



A Saudi businessman has offered $10million for one of the shoes, Saudi television has reported.

Hasan Mohammad Makhaffa, who owns lands and properties south-west of Saudi Arabia, claims the sum he offered is an auction 'starting price'.

Makhafa, 60, a retired teacher said: 'I consider the shoes the most precious of all my real estate and property, and I will leave them behind as inheritance for my children, to become the shrine, a Medal of Freedom.'

Meanwhile, thousands of Iraqis took to the streets again today to demand the release of the journalist.

Mr Zaidi had yelled 'This is a farewell kiss, you dog. This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq,' as he hurled the footwear during a press conference in Baghdad on Sunday.

An Iraqi government official says the journalist has been handed over to the Iraqi military command in Baghdad.

Al Zaidi's brother claims the reporter has been beaten in custody.

Muntadar al-Zaidi has suffered a broken hand, broken ribs and internal bleeding, as well as an eye injury, his older brother, Dargham, told the BBC.

In the Muslim world, showing the sole of your shoe to someone, or throwing it, is a sign of extreme disrespect.

A man armed with a shoe and a mock poster of George Bush with a 'war criminal' written in Arabic during a protest in Najaf, Iraq

Iraqis hit a toppled statue of Saddam Hussein with their shoes after the 2003 invasion.

Mr Zaidi's TV station, Al Baghdadia, screened repeated pleas for his release, while showing footage of explosions and playing music that denounced the U.S. in Iraq.

Al Jazeera TV interviewed Saddam's former chief lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi, who offered to defend Mr Zaidi and called him a hero. In Baghdad's Sadr City, thousands of supporters of radical Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr burned U.S. flags and called for the release of Mr Zaidi.

'Bush, Bush, listen well: Two shoes on your head,' they chanted.

In Najaf, a Shia holy city, some protesters-threw their shoes at a U.S. patrol.

Responses in other countries were ecstatic. 'Al-Zaidi is the man,' said Jordanian Samer Tabalat. 'He did what Arab leaders failed to do.'

In Libya, a charity group headed by leader Muammar Gaddafi's daughter Aicha, said it planned to give Mr Zaidi an award for courage.

When asked about the shoe incident shortly afterwards, President Bush made light of it, joking that he thought the shoes were about size ten.

Demonstrators chant slogans as they hold up shoes during a protest in Mosul,north of Baghdad, December 16, 2008

'It doesn't bother me,' he added. 'It's like going to a political rally and have people yell at you. It's a way for people to draw attention.'

Bush smiled uncomfortably and Maliki looked strained in the moments following the attack.

Other Iraqi journalists apologised on behalf of their colleague.

When Mr Bush met with reporters later aboard Air Force One, he had a joke prepared: 'I didn't know what the guy said but I saw his "sole".'



Later, he said: 'I'm going to be thinking of shoe jokes for a long time. I haven't heard any good ones yet.'

At the news conference Mr Bush declared: 'The war is not over. There is still more work to be done.'

The man is bundled away by security personnel

On Sunday, he applauded security gains in Iraq and, referring to a security pact paving the way for US troops to withdraw, he said that just two years ago 'such an agreement seemed impossible.'

'There is hope in the eyes of Iraq's young,' Mr Bush said. 'This is the future of what we've been fighting for.'

Al-Maliki said: 'Today, Iraq is moving forward in every field.'

For the first time Bush landed in Air Force One at Baghdad International Airport in broad daylight and during the visit he also ventured outside the security of the Green Zone to visit al-Maliki in his palace.

The President smiles during an official meeting with his Iraqi counterpart Jalal Talabani

The unannounced visit came just 37 days before Bush gives way to President-elect Barack Obama, who has vowed to end the Iraq war.

'The work hasn't been easy but it has been necessary for American security, Iraqi hope and world peace,' Bush said.

'I'm just so grateful I had the chance to come back to Iraq before my presidency ends.'

His visit followed the recent signing of a U.S.-Iraq security agreement that requires American forces to withdraw by the end of 2011.

Almost 150,000 U.S. troops remain in Iraq fighting a conflict that is intensely unpopular in the United States and across the globe.

More than 4,200 American servicemen and women have died and the war has cost U.S. taxpayers $576 billion (£385 billion) since it began five years and nine months ago.

Bush's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, said the new security pact between the U.S. and Iraq was unique in the Arab world because it had been publicly debated, discussed and adopted by an elected parliament.

Incoming President Barack Obama has promised to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq

Iraq watchers say last year's surge in U.S. military forces has led to improved security in the country.

Last month, attacks fell to the lowest monthly level since the war began in 2003. However, there were at least 55 deaths on Thursday in a suicide bombing in a restaurant.

Mr Bush said in a recent interview with an American TV network that the 'biggest regret' of his presidency was flawed intelligence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

He used that intelligence as a key justification for going to war, but no such weapons were found.

Barack Obama has promised to bring all U.S. combat troops back home from Iraq a little over a year into his term, as long as commanders agree a withdrawal would not endanger American personnel or Iraq's security.

It's expected the incoming Democratic administration will shift troops from Iraq to Afghanistan, where a resurgent Taliban is causing problems for coalition forces.

Commanders in Afghanistan want at least 20,000 more personnel to bolster their ranks and improve security, but cannot get them unless some leave Iraq.

