Obama's trip almost went off according to plan

[December 04, 2010]  WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama's trip to Afghanistan was shrouded in secrecy, customary whenever a president heads into a war zone, and all seemed to be going according to plan -- until the U.S. military leaked the word before Air Force One had even landed at Bagram Air Field, the main U.S. base in the country.

Once on the ground, events beyond White House control quickly rearranged Obama's carefully choreographed Friday.

With the president still in the air, an Army video service began showing feed of soldiers dressed in camouflage and combat boots milling about inside a hangar. A podium and microphone were set up. Someone was coming to speak.

But who?

The media were tipped when the Defense Video & Imagery Distribution System identified the speaker as Vice President Joe Biden. Journalists scrambled and soon began reporting that it was, in fact, Obama who was making his way to his second stop in Afghanistan this year.

That word got out before Obama, clad in a brown leather jacket, had even stepped off the airplane.

On the ground, the plan was to fly him 30 miles south by helicopter to meet with Afghan President Hamid Karzai at the presidential palace in Kabul, the capital city. But foul weather grounded the helicopter.

The White House then tried to connect them by secure videoconference, but quickly dropped the idea, blaming it on technical difficulties. The two ended up speaking by telephone for about 15 minutes.

Obama was to spend about six hours in Afghanistan, where a year ago he sent 30,000 more troops as part of a stepped-up effort to defeat the Taliban. The series of rapidly changing events Friday trimmed that to less than four hours.

Confined to the base, Obama met with Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, and the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry. Obama visited wounded soldiers at a base hospital and pinned five with Purple Hearts. He then spent about 20 minutes addressing troops inside the hangar, and about as much time shaking hands afterward.

The trip couldn't have happened without a little subterfuge by the White House, either.

Obama's public schedule for Friday, released the night before, said the president would be in the Oval Office in the morning for his daily intelligence briefing and to meet with senior advisers. At 11:15 a.m., he was scheduled to comment on the latest unemployment figures -- which he does routinely when the number is released every month.

One tip-off could have been that the location for the statement was listed as TBD -- to be determined.

Only White House aides, the pool of reporters traveling with Obama and their bosses knew that he actually had left the Executive Mansion without notice Thursday night after his brief appearance at a White House celebration of the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah. The reporters on Air Force One for the 13-hour flight had agreed to confidentiality and that they would report on Obama's trip only after he was in place in Afghanistan.

But it all began to unravel when the defense video unit gave reporters something to chase.

[Associated Press; By DARLENE SUPERVILLE]

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