From The Independent UK
By David Usborne

It was a visit designed to attract maximum publicity – but cloaked in secrecy. President George Bush slipped out of the White House via a side door after dark to catch his secret flight on Sunday night.

On the Labor Day public holiday in the United States, Mr Bush was accompanied on his third trip to Iraq by Defence Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. He sped to Andrews air force base guarded by a single car, rather than his usual motorcade. In Iraq, he met his military commanders, including General David Petraeus, as well as the US Ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker. He also held talks with the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki.

The carefully choreographed visit to Iraq comes as Mr Bush deals with rising pressure even from Democrats and a few members of his party to begin setting a timetable for drawing down American troop levels in Iraq. By bringing Al-Maliki, who is Shi’ite, into Sunni-dominated Anbar province he was also trying to demonstrate the heavily criticised leader’s ability to reach across the sectarian divide.

The White House was braced for criticism that the visit was merely an extravagant gimmick to bolster the President’s ahead of a showdown with Congress on troop levels.

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