‘I’m Going to Read,’ Bush Said

It wasn’t exactly a fib that President Bush used to begin his trip to Baghdad without arousing suspicion.

He told his guests at 7:45 p.m. Monday after dinner at Camp David: “I’m losing altitude -- I’m going to read.”

With that, the president headed to a helicopter, to Andrews Air Force Base about half an hour away, and from there to Iraq. The helicopter did not carry the same olive green-and-white markings of the craft that generally fly as Marine One; Air Force One was parked away from the air base terminal, and the president boarded by the back stairs.

In short, from a ruse to avoid disclosing his travel plans even to most Cabinet members to secretive efforts to disguise his departure from the secure air base, Bush and his aides maneuvered so that only a very few people knew his whereabouts until he had landed in Baghdad.

White House counselor Dan Bartlett told reporters on Air Force One that apart from Vice President Cheney, the only Cabinet members notified in advance were Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. All three remained at the presidential retreat in northern Maryland.

Among those left behind at what had been announced as a two-day conference on Iraq, Bartlett said, were the nation’s top intelligence officials and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Bartlett said that First Lady Laura Bush knew of the trip, but he was not certain when she was notified.

The trip had been planned by just a few senior aides over the last month and was timed to quickly follow the announcement that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki had completed filling his Cabinet.

At the end of the Camp David meeting Tuesday, Bush and much of his Cabinet were supposed to conduct a videoconference with Maliki and his senior advisors, who were to speak from the U.S.-controlled Green Zone in Baghdad.

Officials said Maliki was given only five minutes’ notice that Bush was in Baghdad and that the two would meet in person.