WASHINGTON, Nov. 27 (UPI) -- An exuberant President George W. Bush told reporters aboard Air Force One Thursday that he had been prepared to turn Air Force One around as it approached Iraq if there was the slightest hint that news of his dramatic Thanksgiving visit had leaked.
"I was fully prepared to turn this baby around," the president said a few hours after his visit to U.S. troops in Baghdad.
After being assured the trip was still secret, Bush said, he went up to the cockpit to watch the darkened plane land in Baghdad.
"Had secrecy been broken, that would have been a time when we would have been most vulnerable," Bush said.
The idea for the trip came in October from his chief of staff, Andrew Card. "I was the biggest skeptic all along," Bush said, but he says he was assured by U.S. military commanders that the trip would not unduly endanger him or anyone else.
Bush was headed back to Washington Thursday evening, with Air Force One expected to land in Washington around 2 a.m.
