IRAQ: President Bush secretly travelled to Baghdad and paid a surprise Thanksgiving Day visit to US troops yesterday in a mission to boost the morale of forces in Iraq amid mounting casualties.
In a highly unusual manoeuvre, Mr Bush slipped away from his Texas ranch on Wednesday night, arrived in Iraq yesterday and spent 2½ hours with the troops.
"I bring a message on behalf of America: We thank you for your service, we are proud of you and America stands solidly behind you," Mr Bush told about 600 soldiers, who were stunned to see the president emerge from a side door inside a military mess hall at Baghdad International Airport.
Mr Bush dropped plans to eat the traditional turkey Thanksgiving dinner with his family in order to visit troops in the Iraqi capital, making him the first US president to visit Iraq.
The troops, mostly from the 1st Armoured Division and the 82nd Airborne, had no idea Mr Bush would be there. Without hinting of the enormous surprise to come, Iraq's US civil administrator, Mr Paul Bremer, told the soldiers he was supposed to read the president's Thanksgiving proclamation to them but would instead defer to the most senior person on the premises. At that point, Mr Bush emerged wearing a military jacket and loud cheering began.
"I was just looking for a warm meal somewhere," Mr Bush said.
"Thanks for inviting me to dinner ... I can't think of a finer group of folks to have Thanksgiving dinner with than you all."
Meanwhile, a new US-backed plan to hand sovereignty back to Iraqis will be changed after objections from the country's most revered Shia Muslim leader, the head of Iraq's Governing Council said yesterday.
The US-installed council's leader said the plan would be modified to ensure a central role for Islam and to take account of the cleric's wish that a planned transitional assembly be elected directly. There was no immediate comment from Washington, which said earlier it would send thousands more marines to Iraq next year to fight insurgents that it blames for attacks on US-led occupying forces.
"The agreement remains, but there's to be an appendix, with other texts," Governing Council President Mr Jalal Talabani said after meeting Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.