A journalist has thrown a pair of shoes at George W. Bush, as the President arrived in Baghdad on an unannounced farewell visit to Iraq.

The Iraqi journalist threw the shoes, when the US president was shaking hands with the Iraqi prime minister Nuri al-Maliki in his office in Baghdad on Sunday, AFP reported.

The Iraqi who was sitting in the third row 'jumped up' shouting "It is the farewell kiss, you dog," the report says.

He then threw his shoes one after the other towards Bush. The president was reportedly not hurt, as the shoes did not hit him. Iraqi security staff 'frogmarched' the journalist out.

Bush arrived in Baghdad on Sunday on what has been called a farewell trip to a country which has cost the US thousands of military servicemen and billions of dollars.

Bomb attacks and fighting continue to take a heavy toll on Iraq five years after the US-led invasion of the oil-rich country.

A study conducted by ORB -- a well-known British polling agency which has been tracking public opinion in Iraq since 2005 -- estimated in September 2007 that 1.2 million Iraqis had been killed in violence-related incidents following the March 2003 invasion of the country.

This is while Human Rights Watch estimates put the number of those killed during a period of twenty years of the reign of deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein at 250,000 to 290,000.

MT/MMN