Officials see threat in Bush newspaper cartoon

LOS ANGELES - The US Secret Service regards a pro-Bush cartoon in the Los Angeles Times, showing the President with a gun to his head, as a possible threat.

Cartoonist Michael Ramirez said the drawing in Monday's paper was intended to call attention to the unjust "political assassination" of Bush over his Iraq policy.

Based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph from the Vietnam War, it depicts Bush with his hands behind his back as a man labelled "Politics" prepares to shoot him in the head. The background of the drawing is a cityscape labelled "Iraq".

"We're aware of the image and we're in the process of determining what action if any can be taken," Secret Service spokesman John Gill said.

An official said: "The Secret Service does take threats against all of their protectees very seriously, and it has an obligation to look into any threat that's made against any of its protectees."

The 1968 photograph on which the cartoon is based showed a Vietcong prisoner in the instant before South Vietnam's national police commander pulled the trigger in a summary execution on the streets of Saigon.

Ramirez said that he used the image because it represented to him the "political assassination" of Bush for making a claim, later disavowed, that Iraq was trying to buy uranium in Africa.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq