Iraqi man in Columbus accused of plot to kill George W. Bush waived detention hearing

An Iraqi man living in Columbus who is accused of plotting to assassinate former President George W. Bush will continue to be held in the Franklin County jail after he waived his right to a detention hearing. 

Shihab Ahmed Shihab Shihab, 52, who has lived in an apartment in the Northland area and in Indianapolis since arriving in the U.S. in 2020, allegedly planned to smuggle operatives affiliated with the Islamic State terrorist group into the country to murder the former president, according to court documents.

After being arrested and charged earlier this week, Shihab on Thursday waived his right to a detention hearing scheduled for Friday, according to court documents. On Friday, Shihab remained in the Franklin County jail, according to the jail's website.

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Shihab was arrested Tuesday and charged in federal court in Columbus with two felonies: assisting an alien entering the United States for financial gain and aiding and abetting the attempted murder of former President Bush.

Neighbors around Shihab's apartment told The Dispatch that he seemed to keep to himself and that they did not know much about prior to his arrest. 

Federal investigators allege in court documents that Shihab earlier this year traveled to Dallas where, in the company of an FBI confidential informant, he scouted former President Bush's neighborhood and the George W. Bush Institute.

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Shihab told an informant he wanted to kill Bush because he believed the former president was responsible for "killing many Iraqis and breaking apart the entire country of Iraq" when he initiated the Iraq War in 2003, according to the court documents. 

Both Bush and United Kingdom Prime Minister Tony Blair had maintained that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein continued to manufacture and hide stockpiles of chemical and other weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the early 2000s after agreeing to a U.N. resolution to destroy them.

United Nations inspections did not turn up evidence of the alleged activity, however, and the U.N. Security Council did not agree with Bush administration arguments that Hussein's lack of cooperation was a violation of the U.N. resolution or that there was enough evidence to authorize the use of force for allegedly violating the resolution.

Without U.N. support, Bush organized a U.S.-led coalition that invaded Iraq on March 20, 2013 in a war that eventually toppled Hussein and his Baath party from power.

About a year after Bush launched the war, a U.S. Senate intelligence report concluded that many of the Bush administration's pre-war statements about WMD were not supported by intelligence or were inaccurate or misleading.

Jordan Laird is a courts reporter at the Columbus Dispatch. You can reach her at jlaird@dispatch.com. You can follow her on Twitter at @LairdWrites.