Bush Upset Agent Was Kicked Off Plane

Dec. 28 -- President Bush was upset that an Arab-American Secret Service agent was kicked off a commercial airline, and he'll be "madder than heck" if it was because of the agent's ethnicity, Bush said today.

The agent, who is assigned to protect the president, was scheduled to fly on an American Airlines flight from Baltimore to Texas on Christmas Day to take up duties at the president's ranch in Crawford.

A spokesman for the airline said the agent was removed at the pilot's request because of "inconsistencies" in the paperwork he filed that is required of all federal agents flying on commercial airlines.

He said religion and ethnicity had nothing to do with the agent's removal, and apologized for any inconvenience it may have caused him.

The agent was allowed to fly on Wednesday to Texas, where the president is spending two weeks.

'Madder Than Heck'

"I talked to the man this morning," Bush said in Crawford today. "I told him how proud I was that he was by my side. He's here on the ranch, and he's guarding me. And of course, I was [upset]."

A Washington-based advocacy group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, known as CAIR, says the agent believes he was denied his flight because of racial and religious profiling.

The group sent a letter to American Airlines demanding an explanation of its rules on racial discrimination and an apology.

"There's an inquiry going on as to specifically what took place," Bush said. But if he was treated that way because of his ethnicity, that's — that will make me madder than heck."