Bush ducked a pair of shoes in Baghdad

PanARMENIAN.Net - U.S. President George W. Bush ducked a pair of shoes hurled at his head - one shoe after the other - in the middle of a news conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Both shoes narrowly missed their target and thumped loudly against the wall behind the leaders, the AP reports.



"Don't worry about it," the president said as the room erupted into chaos.



Iraqi reporters started shouting what Bush later explained were apologies for the incident.



"So what if the guy threw a shoe at me?" Bush said, comparing the action to political protests in the United States. "If you want the facts, it was a size 10," he joked.



The shoe attack came as Bush and al-Maliki were about to shake hands. The assailant - later identified as television correspondent Muntadar al-Zeidi - leapt from his chair and hurled his footwear at the president, who was about 20 feet away.



"This is a farewell kiss, you dog," he yelled in Arabic. "This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq."



When 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."