According to press reports, Ambassador Paul Bremer, the American ex- governor of Iraq was pelted with shoes by an Iraqi demonstrator in London last Wednesday Feb 6^th  In the House of Commons, Hall 6-bit. Bremer’s lecture was supposed to last for two hours, but Iraqis angry protesters interrupted his lecture with a barrage of insults and slogans hostile to the United States and forced him to leave earlier. 

The young demonstrator said: “My name is Yasser Al-Samarra’i, I came to London in 2024 after the war, after the USA destroyed my country. I have two messages, one from Saddam Hussein the ex- president [of Iraq] and another from the Iraqi people. This is the first message [and he threw the shoes]….You destroyed my country… f*** you and f*** your democracy”. Witnesses said that the Iraqi Yasser al-Samarrai was taken out of the hall shackled by the British police. 

Paul Bremer (71) the American ex-governor was obviously shaken and ducked quickly, but tried to recuperate and “typically” cover his humiliation with a bad joke, repeating the same “classic” phrase that all American politicians say: “if he had done that while Saddam Hussein was alive, he would be a dead man by now”.   Bremer forgot that if Saddam Hussein was alive, he –Bremer or anyone else for that matter--wouldn’t have been governor of Iraq in the first place, neither being hit by shoes.

 Witnesses say that after the incident Iraqis who thwarted the lecture, forcing Bremer and organizers to cancel the lecture and smuggling him from exit corridors of the rear doors for fear of the Iraqis anger.

Journalist Salam Al-Shamma said when Bremer was trying to leave an Iraqi Shiite lady from Najaf called Nidhal Shibeeb stopped him, he asked her “Do you want to hit me with your shoes too?” she replied: “No, this is what you did when you crushed the heads of our young men with your boots. I want to ask you a question: if you are so proud of dismantling the Iraqi army why did you build another one of sectarian militias that is now slaughtering and raping women?”

In any case, next time all American politicians who dare to speak about Iraq in the future have to demand from organizers that all audience should be bare-foot. 

As hitting failure American  politicians by shoes has become a regular practice, an Iraqi journalist, Dr. Walid Al-Rawi suggested creating an association for "Politicians Hit by Shoes".