Bush Makes Surprise Farewell Stop in Baghdad

Will meet leaders, thank troops in mission's 'endgame'

By Matt Cantor, Newser Staff

Posted Dec 14, 2008 9:28 AM CST

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Bush Makes Surprise Farewell Stop in Baghdad — Bush and Iraq President Jalal Talabani pose for photographs in the Oval Office at the White House September 10, 2008 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images)

President Bush has arrived in Baghdad on a surprise farewell trip, the BBC reports. A day after Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the US mission in Iraq is in its “endgame,” Bush met with President Jalal Talabani; he’ll meet with other "leaders, thank the troops, and celebrate the new security agreement” that calls for withdrawal by 2011, a White House rep said.

The visit is Bush’s fourth since the invasion in 2003, Reuters reports. Upon the president’s high-security arrival, US Central Command Chief David Petraeus said attacks in the country had fallen to 10 a day from 180 in June of last year. There are now some 149,000 US troops in Iraq; according to the security pact, passed last month, they are to leave Iraq's cities next year before withdrawing completely.
(More George W. Bush stories.)

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