'Natural athlete' George was quick to duck: Laura Bush

First lady says shoe attack was an assault and she couldn't laugh it off

WASHINGTON/BAGHDAD: US president George Bush chose to laugh off the shoe attack by an Iraqi journalist, but first lady Laura Bush wasn't amused.

"As a wife, I saw this as an assault, and that's what it was… And so I didn't laugh it off like he did," she told USA Today.

Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi hurled two shoes at Bush while he was addressing a joint conference with Iraq's prime minister Nouri al-Maliki in Baghdad on his farewell visit last Sunday. Bush hands over the US presidency to Barack Obama in a month.

The incident has turned Zaidi into a hero throughout West Asia and the Arab world, with a woman even offering to marry him.

Laura Bush said she had seen the tape of her husband ducking the two shoes thrown by Zaidi. "Of course, he [Bush] is very quick," she said. "That was one of things I saw - he's such a natural athlete."

Asked if she worried about her husband's security, she said, "Not really." But "any spouse of a president thinks at some time a little bit about the safety of their loved one," she said.

She also defended George Bush's policy to attack Iraq and Afghanistan. "Fifty million people are free from tyranny because of the United States and because of my husband's policies," she said. "These are very, very important, world-changing happenings, and they are for the best."

"Do people really wish Saddam Hussein were still there? I don't think so," she said.