US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Thursday delayed by a day her departure to the Gulf after her husband's hospitalization for a heart procedure, a State Department official said. “Secretary Clinton is going to Qatar and then Saudi Arabia, as planned,” assured the official, but said the top US diplomat will leave Washington Saturday instead of Friday so “she doesn't have to rush back from New York.” Former US president Bill Clinton underwent a sudden heart operation Thursday after complaining of chest pains, but his aides said he was in good spirits afterwards. Secretary Clinton will be in Qatar Sunday, then in Riyadh and Jeddah, before returning to the US Tuesday, the official said. Meanwhile, former US president Bill Clinton arrived home early Friday following a successful heart procedure at a New York hospital to open a blocked artery in his heart that had caused him chest discomfort. Television footage show Clinton, who was president from 1993 until 2001, walking to his vehicle as he left the hospital and later arriving home in the New York suburb of Chappaqua. “President Clinton was released from New York Presbyterian/Columbia this morning in excellent health,” Douglas Band, counselor to Clinton, said in a statement. Clinton, 63, had quadruple heart bypass surgery in 2004 to free up four blocked arteries, and the latest incident comes after he has traveled twice to Haiti to help recovery efforts after a devastating earthquake there.
