A mortar attack on a U.S. base in Iraq killed an American soldier Friday, hours after U.S. President Bush made a secret visit to Baghdad to spend Thanksgiving with U.S. troops fighting to end a guerrilla war.

US President Bush leaves Air Force One early Friday morning, Nov. 28, 2003, after arriving at TSTC airfield after his visit to Iraq to spend Thanksgiving dinner with the troops. Bush boarded Marine One to his ranch near Crawford Texas.  [AP]

A military spokeswoman said four mortar bombs landed inside the headquarters of the 101st Airborne Division in the northern city of Mosul with one killing the soldier, another wounding an Iraqi working in the compound and two falling harmlessly.

Since Bush declared major combat over on May 1, 185 U.S. soldiers have been killed in action in Iraq. Separately, U.S. Central Command said soldiers from the 1st Infantry Division based west of Baghdad had shot a seven-year-old child in the foot after he pointed an AK-47 at approaching U.S. troops.

In a statement, Centcom said the child was being treated at a Baghdad hospital and the incident was under investigation.

During his lightning trip Thursday, Bush thanked American soldiers for "sacrificing for our freedom and our peace."

"We did not charge hundreds of miles through the heart of Iraq, pay a bitter cost of casualties, defeat a ruthless dictator and liberate 25 million people only to retreat before a band of thugs and assassins," he said to a standing ovation at the heavily fortified Baghdad International Airport.

He assured the Iraqi Governing Council Washington would stay the course in Iraq while urging them to work harder to prepare for next year's handover of sovereignty.

In an elaborate plan to ensure his security, Bush slipped away from his Texas ranch Wednesday night, arrived in Iraq Thursday and spent two and a half hours with the troops, becoming the first U.S. president to visit the country.

He arrived back in the United States early Friday morning.

U.N. ROLE PUSHED

U.S. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (R) and Senator Jack Reed (C) get a tour by Lt. Col. Brian Mennes through the base of the 2nd battalion, 2nd Airborne Division in Baghdad, November 28, 2003.  [Reuters]

On the heels of Bush's visit, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, wife of former President Bill Clinton, visited Baghdad Friday.

In between meetings with U.S. commanders, civilian officials and senior Iraqis, Clinton said she hoped for a wider international role in administering post-war Iraq.

"I'm a big believer that we ought to internationalize this, but it will take a big change in our administration's thinking," said Clinton, who has ruled out a 2004 presidential bid.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, in comments published Friday, also urged a more active U.N. role in setting out timetables and arrangements for self-rule in Iraq.

With the U.S. economy improving, Iraq is emerging as perhaps the greatest threat to Bush's re-election in 2004 as American occupation troops suffer casualties almost every day.

Britain's Times newspaper hailed Bush's trip as "one of the most daring stunts in modern American history."

"Probably not since the American Civil War, when battles raged only a few miles from Washington, has the incumbent of the White House deliberately placed himself in so much danger," the newspaper's diplomatic editor wrote.

"Election raid on Baghdad," declared a front-page headline in France's Left-wing newspaper Liberation, beside a photograph of Bush carrying a platter laden with roast turkey.

But opinions on the trip differed in other sections of the press, with Britain's tabloid Daily Mirror newspaper and The Independent both running a similar photograph of Bush holding a platter with the headline: "The Turkey has landed."

POLITICAL WRESTLING

In Baghdad, discussions were under way on amendments to a new U.S.-backed plan to hand sovereignty back to Iraqis by July, after the country's most revered Shi'ite cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, said the current plan paid too little heed to Islam and did not include enough Iraqi involvement.

Jalal Talabani, head of the U.S.-appointed Governing Council, said Thursday he understood Sistani's request that a transitional assembly due to be in place by the end of May be directly elected rather than picked by regional caucuses.

Asked about Sistani's concerns, U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice told NBC's "Today" show she believed the plan on the table was a good one that would work out.

"We are implementing a plan that we think is a very good plan, the Governing Council came up with this plan ... to get sovereignty to the Iraqi people," she said, while also emphasizing Sistani's importance as a religious figure.

Under the U.S. plan, the assembly will choose an interim government which will take over power from the occupation administration by the start of July. A constitution will be written and elections held by the end of 2005.

Close

Today's Top News		Top International News
+Beijing censures passing of referendum law ( 2003-11-28) +Pesticide ban to hit farmers ( 2003-11-28) +Boat cut plan to protect fish stock ( 2003-11-28) +Experts call for unified tax rates ( 2003-11-28) +Plan to address climate change ( 2003-11-28)		+DPRK demands US compensation for suspension of reactor work ( 2003-11-29) +Analysis: N. Ireland peace road becomes rougher after assembly election ( 2003-11-29) +Holiday deals lure a different kind of pilgrim ( 2003-11-29) +Launch of Japan's H-2A rocket with spy satellites fails ( 2003-11-29) +Hillary Clinton arrives in Baghdad hot on heels of Bush ( 2003-11-29)