"This is a farewell kiss from the Iraqi people, you dog!"
And with that 28-year-old Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi hurled his first shoe at then-United States president George W Bush at a press conference in Baghdad.
"This is for the widows and orphans and all those killed in Iraq," he yelled as he threw his second shoe.
It was December 14, 2008, and Bush was on his way out of office — voters in the US had just handed a landslide win to Barack Obama, who had once spoken against an invasion of Iraq.
Bush, who managed to dodge both shoes, joked afterwards: "All I can report is it is a size 10."
In 2003, a US-led coalition of armed forces invaded Iraq in a "war on terror" in the wake of September 11.
Though no evidence was ever found, the Bush administration and its allies claimed that Saddam Hussein was manufacturing and concealing "weapons of mass destruction".
Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were killed, as were thousands of American military personnel. The invasion and occupation has been estimated to have cost the United States $US815 billion ($1.223 trillion).
"I don't know what his beef is," Bush said in the wake of the shoe-throwing incident. "But whatever it is I'm sure somebody will hear it."
And they did — al-Zaidi was celebrated with murals appearing across Baghdad depicting Bush ducking the shoes.
Within months a sculpture of a giant shoe was erected at an Iraqi orphanage, and across the Middle East.
From Turkey to Lebanon, rival shoemakers vied to claim credit for making the shoes, but al-Zaidi's brother insisted they were Iraqi-made.
It even inspired an online game in which players could try to virtually knock Bush out with a shoe.
Then-Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, who tried to catch the second shoe as it hurtled towards Bush's head, condemned al-Zaidi and demanded an on-air apology from his employer Al-Baghdadia TV.
The channel instead responded by demanding al-Zaidi's release.
"Any measures against Muntadhar will be considered the acts of a dictatorial regime," it said in a statement.
Al-Zaidi was sentenced to three years in prison for assaulting a foreign head of state during an official visit but ended up spending just nine months in jail, where he says he was tortured.
In 2023 al-Zaidi described his state of mind leading up to the press conference.
"What I had seen was my country invaded and occupied without justification," he told New York Magazine.
While the Iraqi people were desperate to "get rid of Saddam" he didn't want to see it done by foreign forces.
"The American forces killed people in the street," he said.
"They scared and intimidated my people when they raided their houses in the middle of the night. So the Americans behaved in a savage way."
He described covering stories of rape and murder by American soldiers as a journalist.
Before he threw the shoes al-Zaidi took off his ring and gave it to his cameraman, instructing him to give it to his brother.
"I didn't say why. Then I gave him my wallet. Then I gave him my money and my identification," he said.
He had already recorded a will, knowing he could have been shot and killed by American guards.
When al-Zaidi was released from prison the following year he said: "I'm a free man now, but the nation is still in a prison."
