| | White House: Let Iraq decide how to handle shoe-thrower
 The White House is taking a nonchalant approach to questions surrounding the Iraqi reporter who hurled two shoes at President Bush's head over the weekend.
While not calling for any punishment of the journalist, Montather Al-Zeidi, the White House also is not addressing reports that he may have been beaten while being held in either US or Iraqi custody.
White House Press Secretary Dana Perino, sporting a black eye sustained in the scuffle that followed the shoe-throwing incident, told reporters that the Iraqi justice system should decide the man's fate.
"The president believes that Iraq is a sovereign country, a democratic country, and they will have a process that they follow on this," she said. "But as I said, the president, you know, harbors no hard feelings about the incident."
Perino tried to downplay the growing perception that the incident will serve as a historical symbol of the Bush administration's bungled decision to invade and occupy Iraq.
"I don't think that you can take one guy's shoe -- throwing his shoe as representative of the people of Iraq. ... But I know that there are people in Iraq who are angry, angry at their situation," she said. "It's been a very rough five years."
Perino went on to defend the invasion as necessary and touted the fact that journalists were able to ask questions -- and hurl shoes -- at a press conference in the country as symbolic of its success.
This video is from C-SPAN, broadcast Dec. 16, 2008.
Download video via RawReplay.com
Transcript:
Q How's your eye?
MS. PERINO: Fine.
Q And when -- does the president think that, had the gentleman thrown something other than a shoe, or thrown the show more accurately, that he was well enough protected, standing as he was at that news conference when --
MS. PERINO: Well, it was just a shoe. And the president saw from his vantage point -- he felt fine about it. I think you saw, he let the Secret Service know he thought he was okay. And the Secret Service jumped in as quickly as they thought they needed to. And then they were able to back off and let the prime minister of a duly -- the duly elected prime minister of a sovereign Iraq, taking questions from journalists there who never would have been able to do that five years ago -- and the president just thinks it was just a -- it was just a shoe.
And people express themselves in lots of different ways. Obviously, he was very angry. I can't think -- I don't -- I can't tell you exactly what the show-thrower was thinking. But I can tell you what the president thought was that he was fine. And he said immediately, he saw -- you saw his reaction was don't worry about it. It was okay.
So we hold no hard feelings about it. And we've really moved on.
Q Are you satisfied with the -- satisfied with the protection --
MS. PERINO: Yes.
Q -- had it been something other than a shoe?
MS. PERINO: Yes, he is satisfied that he was well-protected by the Secret Service, as he always has been.
Q Dana, specifically, does the president --
Q (Off mike) -- Maliki in (clearing ?) the punishment?
MS. PERINO: No. The only thing that he -- what he said publicly is what he said privately to Prime Minister Maliki, was don't worry about it, that he was fine.
Q (Off mike) -- not worry about, but does it reflect the feelings of the people?
MS. PERINO: I don't think that you can take one guy's shoe -- throwing his shoe as representative of the people of Iraq. And I will tell you that Prime Minister Maliki and the journalists who were there in the room who apologized on behalf of the Iraqis, saying this is not how they would treat a guest.
But I know that there are people in Iraq who are angry, angry at their situation. It's been a very rough five years. What we were there talking about, though, is how much progress Iraq has made because of our troops and because of the wonderful work of the Iraqi security forces and their military and how their economy's coming back. And they've grown in leaps and bounds. And so the country is on its way to becoming a wonderful country that can govern, sustain and defend itself, and that will be an ally of ours in the war on terror. So --
Q But he wasn't a guest. We're occupiers.
MS. PERINO: No, we're not, Helen. We are absolutely -- it doesn't need to --
Q (Off mike.)
MS. PERINO: We all went there and he signed the agreement of the Status of Forces Agreement.
If the Iraqis didn't want us there, we wouldn't have been signing that agreement that allows our troops to operate there for the next three years.
Q (Off mike) -- people picked by us who run the country.
MS. PERINO: Are you suggesting that Prime Minister Maliki was not elected by the people of Iraq? That's preposterous.
Q Why?
MS. PERINO: Because there was an election and they -- he was elected.
Q When you are under an occupation, can you really have a free election?
MS. PERINO: I have never once heard somebody suggest that that was not a free and fair election in Iraq. It was one of the highlights of the last several years that they were able to pull off an election like that, and how many people came out to vote. And absolutely, Prime Minister Maliki is their duly elected prime minister.
Q Dana?
MS. PERINO: Yes, go ahead.
Q Does the president believe that the journalist needs to be punished?
MS. PERINO: The president believes that Iraq is a sovereign country, a democratic country, and they will have a process that they follow on this. But as I said, the president, you know, harbors no hard feelings about the incident.
Q (Off mike) -- pardon. (Laughter.)
MS. PERINO: If he threw a party? Is that what you said?
Q (Off mike) -- a pardon.
MS. PERINO: Oh. Well, see, that's -- that would be in Prime Minister Maliki's bailiwick, and I don't know what their constitution says about pardons.
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