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Dodging shoes, Bush says more work is needed in Iraq By JENNIFER LOVENAP Evan Vucci An Iraqi man throws a shoe at President George W. Bush during a new conference with Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Sunday, Dec. 14, 2008, in Baghdad. A man threw two shoes at Bush, one after another, during the news conference. Bush ducked both throws, and neither man was hit.

On an Iraq trip shrouded in secrecy and dissent, President George W. Bush on Sunday hailed progress in the unpopular war that defines his presidency and got a size-10 reminder of opposition to his policies when a man hurled shoes at him during a news conference.

"This is the end!" shouted the man, later identified as Muntadar al-Zeidi, a correspondent for Al-Baghdadia television, an Iraqi-owned station based in Cairo, Egypt.

Bush ducked both shoes as they whizzed past his head and landed with a thud against the wall behind him.

"All I can report," Bush joked of the incident, "is a size 10."

The U.S. president visited the Iraqi capital just 37 days before he hands the war off to President-elect Barack Obama, who has pledged to end it. The president wanted to highlight a drop in violence in a nation still riven by ethnic strife and to celebrate a recent U.S.-Iraq security agreement, which calls for U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraq by the end of 2011.

"There is still more work to be done," Bush said after his meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, adding that the agreement puts Iraq on solid footing.

"The war is not over," Bush said, adding that "it is decisively on it's way to being won."

It was at that point the journalist stood up and threw his shoe. Bush ducked, and it narrowly missed his head. The second shoe came quickly, and Bush ducked again while several Iraqis grabbed the man and dragged him to the floor.

In Iraqi culture, throwing shoes at someone is a sign of contempt. Iraqis whacked a statue of Saddam Hussein with their shoes after U.S. marines toppled it to the ground after the 2003 invasion.

Bush brushed off the incident, comparing it political protests at home.

"So what if I guy threw his shoe at me?" he said.

In many ways, the unannounced trip was a victory lap without a clear victory. Nearly 150,000 U.S. troops remain in Iraq fighting a war that is intensely disliked across the globe. More than 4,209 members of the U.S. military have died in the conflict, which has cost U.S. taxpayers $576 billion since it began five years and nine months ago.

Polls show most Americans believe the U.S. erred in invading Iraq in 2003. Bush ordered the nation into war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq while citing intelligence claiming the Mideast nation harbored weapons of mass destruction. The weapons were never found, the intelligence was discredited, Bush's credibility with U.S. voters plummeted and Saddam was captured and executed.

For Bush, the war is the issue around which both he and the country defined his two terms in office. He saw the invasion and continuing fight as a necessary action to protect Americans and fight terrorism. Though his decision won support at first, the public now has largely decided that the U.S. needs to get out of Iraq.

In the news conference with al-Maliki, the U.S. president applauded security gains in Iraq and said that just two years ago "such an agreement seemed impossible."

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

Said al-Maliki: "Today, Iraq is moving forward in every field."

Air Force One, the president's distinctive powder blue-and-white jetliner, landed at Baghdad International Airport in the afternoon local time after a secretive Saturday night departure from Washington. In a sign of security gains in this war zone, Bush received a formal arrival ceremony - a flourish absent in his three earlier trips.

Bush soon began a rapid-fire series of meetings with top Iraqi leaders.