IRAQ: THE IMPERATOR HAS LANDED

Independent: The turkey has landed: how Bush cooked up a secret mission to give thanks to his troops

George Bush delivered a dramatic Thanksgiving Day surprise last night by flying, under cover of darkness, into Iraq on board Air Force One.

Two hundred and ten days after declaring an end to major combat, President Bush slipped into the unstable and dangerous Middle Eastern country that his troops now occupy with the lights on his plane darkened and the windows blacked out.

The extraordinary mission ­ no American president has visited a war zone since Richard Nixon flew to Vietnam in 1969 ­ was clearly calculated to burnish Mr Bush's image as he prepares for a re-election campaign that will be overshadowed by violence in Iraq and the rising toll of American casualties. It was spent with 600 soldiers at a turkey and sweet potato dinner in a mess hall at Baghdad airport and lasted a mere two and a half hours.