THE irony of George W. Bush's final trip to Iraq continues to grow. Anyone who watched the carefully staged PR campaign that accompanies the US invasion will always remember the image of the statue of Saddam Hussein being pulled from its pedestal and then attacked by Iraqis who whacked it repeatedly with their shoes, the supreme insult from an Arab, TV viewers were told. So it was fittingly ironic that in a press conference held Sunday in Baghdad, an Iraqi journalist apparently became so incensed at being in the presence of the US president that he removed first one shoe and hurled it at the president and then removed another and hurled it at him, as well, before being wrestled to the ground by security. It will certainly prove to be one of the most humiliating experiences of Bush's two-term presidency, the leader of the strongest country in the world ducking shoes flying at him from a gaggle of journalists, the one doing the throwing being a member of the populace of the country Bush sent US troops to liberate. Bush recently launched a PR campaign designed to show a gentler, kinder side of himself, sitting for interviews with both domestic and international press. In these interviews, he comes across as a nice enough man, one who probably had no intention of doing the profound damage to his own country and others that he is responsible for. It is, at times, almost possible to feel a little sympathy for him, his continued misplaced confidence in many of his policies almost possible to ignore. But it is fitting that despite the enormous protests against the man in his own country and in many other countries around the world, it was an Iraqi who had the temerity to stand up in front of the cameras and take an action that so many people around the world have wanted to take for so long. George W Bush got exactly what he deserved in Iraq. It is unfortunate that the people of Iraq had to bear so much that they did not deserve from this so
