Surprise for Reporters: Bush to Baghdad
By By E&P Staff
Published: June 13, 2006 10:00 AM ET
NEW YORK President George W. Bush, seeking to bolster support for Iraq's new government and the U.S. war effort at home, made a surprise visit to Iraq on Tuesday to meet Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
The trip was known only to a handful of aides and a small number of reporters sworn to secrecy. The pool report later noted whimsically: "The pool gathered outside an Arlington, Virginia hotel and was asked to surrender cell phones, blackberries etc. Some found this hard on an emotional level, but complied all the same."
Steve Scully, senior Washington producer for C-SPAN and incoming president of the White House Correspondents Association, said the secrecy is understandable. "You've got to protect the president when he travels," Scully told E&P's Joe Strupp on Tuesday. "He is entering a war zone, he is the president and you have to take security. He took the press corps swith him and Tony Snow. If they hadn’t brought the press corps, you would have seen a lot of anger. But the pool went with him."
According to a pool report, Bush aide Don Bartlett said, "Our cabinet is not completely aware. They all expected him to show up at breakfast with the ambassador of Iraq." Bartlett said that First Lady Laura Bush knew of the trip, though he was unsure of how long ago she had been informed.
"Reporters were informed of the president's travel plans in person at a variety of Washington area restaurants, homes, and cafes little more than 24 hours before departure," the pool report revealed. "A harried radio correspondent discovered his pool assignment with a couple of hours' notice (he still made the drive from the Camp David file in time.) Poolers were under strict orders to tell nobody about the travel, including spouses. Some were asked if their bureaus would notice their absence for a day or two."
The president was expected to be in Baghdad a little more than five hours. Bush met with al-Maliki in heavily fortified green zone at a palace once used by Saddam Hussein. It now serves temporarily as the U.S. Embassy.
"Good to see you," exclaimed al-Maliki, who didn't know Bush was in Baghdad until five minutes before they met.
"Thanks for having me," Bush responded. They smiled broadly and gave each other a two-handed handshake in the high-domed marble room.
Two pool reports on the visit follow:
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The president departed Andrews Air Force Base after secretly traveling by helicopter from Camp David, where he was in the middle of a two-day Iraq summit with members of his cabinet and senior military officials. He was accompanied by senior aides like National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, Chief of Staff Josh Bolten, White House counselor Dan Bartlett, Deputy Chief of Staff Joe Hagan and White House spokesman Tony Snow.
"The POTUS is on board!" Mr. Bush, wearing a navy blue baseball cap, dark pants and blue button down shirt, yelled to reporters as he climbed the rear steps of the plane. [POTUS is a White House acronym for President of the United States.] Air Force One - piloted by the same colonel who had flown Mr. Bush to Iraq on his first trip to Iraq in November 2003 -- was wheels-up at 9:07 PM Washington time Monday night. It landed at Baghdad International Airport at 4:08 PM Baghdad time Tuesday afternoon.
Presidential counselor Dan Bartlett told reporters aboard Air Force One that the trip was planned over the past month by a small group of six White House he described as a "very, very close circle of people." He said that Mr. Bush had wanted to come to Iraq as soon as the final positions in Mr. Maliki's government - the ministers of Defense and Interior – were chosen. Had those posts been filled sooner, Mr. Bush would have made the trip several months earlier, Mr. Bartlett said.
Apart from Vice President Cheney, the only cabinet members notified in advance that the president would be visiting Baghdad were Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, both of whom remained at Camp David after Mr. Bush left for Iraq, Mr. Bartlett said. The rest of the Bush cabinet members assembled at Camp David – including Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman and Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns – weren't told that Mr. Bush had left Camp David until Tuesday morning, Mr. Bartlett said.
Mr. Bartlett said that the president left Camp David Monday evening after excusing himself from an after-dinner discussion about Iraq that included Mr. Cheney; Messrs. Gonzalez, Bodman, and Johanns; National Intelligence Director John Negroponte; Gen. Michael Hayden, the Director of Central Intelligence; and Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Mr. Bartlett explained that at approximately 7:45 PM, Mr. Bush told the officials that he was "losing altitude" and wanted to go to bed to read a bit before falling asleep. The meeting adjourned around 8 PM, but the president had by that point already quietly left for Andrews. Mr. Bartlett declined to specify how the president snuck away without the other officials noticing his absence, but said that the helicopter Mr. Bush flew to Andrews was not the green and white helicopter normally used as Marine One.
"Our cabinet is not completely aware," he said. "They all expected him to show up at breakfast with the ambassador of Iraq." Mr. Bartlett said that First Lady Laura Bush knew of the trip, though he was unsure of how long ago she had been informed.
The Iraqi government was similarly kept in the dark, Mr. Bartlett said. Mr. Maliki and senior members of his new cabinet had been asked to gather in the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad Tuesday morning for a secure video teleconference with Mr. Bush and his war cabinet at Camp David. Neither Mr. Maliki nor any members of his government were told that Mr. Bush was instead planning to visit Baghdad in person, Mr. Bartlett said. The U.S. told Mr. Maliki that the president was in Baghdad only after the president's Nighthawk helicopter had landed in a secure airfield in the Green Zone after a six-minute trip from the Baghdad airport.
Mr. Bartlett said the extraordinarily-tight protective measures were necessary because of Iraq's tenuous security situation, which also meant that the option of having Mr. Bush stay overnight in Iraq was "never seriously considered."
"The president views it you're entering into a situation with a very determined enemy who wants to stop the very progress that this president and this new government are working so hard to achieve," Mr. Bartlett said. "Obviously, when you're entering into a situation where the enemy is so active we have to be extra cautious, but I think the American people and the entire international community are reassured by the fact that the president is making such a personal effort to ensure the success of the new government."
Secrecy was also tight surrounding the gathering of your pool. Reporters were informed of the president's travel plans in person at a variety of Washington area restaurants, homes, and cafes little more than 24 hours before departure. A harried radio correspondent discovered his pool assignment with a couple of hours' notice (he still made the drive from the Camp David file in time.) Poolers were under strict orders to tell nobody about the travel, including spouses. Some were asked if their bureaus would notice their absence for a day or two.
The pool gathered outside an Arlington, Virginia hotel and was asked to surrender cell phones, blackberries etc. Some found this hard on an emotional level, but complied all the same. We then drove the back roads of Andrews directly to a parking lot outside the secure area surrounding the runway. Security personnel used hand-held wands to check us for metal objects, and a bomb-sniffing dog was led past all of our luggage. The dog also sniffed under the vans we had traveled in. We drove directly to the steps of AF1, which was parked out of sight of the terminal, close by its hangar. The usual protocols were absent: no officers checking names at the base of the stairs, no departure wave from the president [it was dark when the substitute Marine One landed.] For those who care, dinner was ravioli and the initial entertainment was a Nationals-Colorado game....
Mr. Bartlett said that Mr. Bush had invited the Iraqi premier to visit the White House, but that the trip's timing had not yet been finalized.
Yochi Dreazen
The Wall Street Journal
Richard Wolffe
Newsweek
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POOL REPORT #2
Air Force One landed at the sprawling Baghdad International Airport at 4:08 PM Tuesday afternoon. The plane landed at a semi-deserted airstrip a good distance away from the main terminal. We were hustled off the plane by its back doors and led across the pavement to a waiting convoy of Nighthawk passenger helicopters [Secret Service agents had given us camouflage flak jackets shortly before we landed]. We didn't see POTUS enter his helicopter. As we took off, we could see a long list of waiting vehicles that had driven to the airstrip to meet the plane, including several GMC Suburbans, Humvees, and a white and red ambulance.
The helicopter ride was uneventful and lasted about seven minutes. Everyone on the helicopters was in body armor except for the White House aides, who wore business suits but no armor. Bartlett had earlier said that POTUS would also not be wearing body armor, though we could not verify that for ourselves. When we landed in the Green Zone, we were hustled to a waiting line of Suburbans and other SUVs for the short drive to the Republican Palace, a 1950's-era building which is now part of the U.S. Embassy compound. We arrived there around 4:32 PM local time.
The pool was ushered into a large, domed room in the center of the palace near the entrance to what had been the offices of American proconsul Paul Bremer. An American and an Iraqi flag had been arrayed next to the entrance to the hallway leading to the offices, and when we walked in we saw Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and one of his aides standing there by themselves waiting for POTUS.
POTUS, wearing a navy blue suit, white shirt, and blue tie, swept into the room at 4:43 PM local time, escorted by U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad; Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq; Messrs. Hadley, Bolten, Snow; and other aides and Secret Service personnel. Mr. Bush walked up to Mr. Maliki and shook his hand as the cameras flashed. Mr. Maliki said, "Good to see you," to which Mr. Bush responded, "Thanks for having me." They stood in the hallway for another minute and then disappeared into one of the former Bremer offices.
By E&P Staff
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