Still no 'mission accomplished'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7377036.stm
By Paul Reynolds
World affairs correspondent, BBC News website
The banner was said to have been the Navy's idea
President Bush did not say "Mission Accomplished" on the deck of the
USS Abraham Lincoln off San Diego on 1 May five years ago. But the
banner above him did.
And the picture of those two words said more than the 1,829 words of
his speech.
What the president said, among a lot of other things, was: "Major
combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the
United States and our allies have prevailed. And now our coalition is
engaged in securing and reconstructing that country."
But the message from the banner said it simpler - mission
accomplished. It was all over.
It wasn't. Guerrilla war followed, and this has produced more US
casualties than the "major combat operations" did.
The phrase "mission accomplished" has lost that distinctive military
ring of finality that it once had. It has become an irony.
Navy's desire
It turned out that the sign was the US Navy's idea, to celebrate the
return of the Abraham Lincoln from the war on Iraq, after an
operational tour of 290 days.
President Bush declares 'mission accomplished'
Mr Bush explained this in October 2003 and was sup****ted by Navy
spokesman Commander Conrad Chun, who told CNN: "The banner was a Navy
idea, the ****p's idea. The banner signified the successful completion
of the ****p's deployment."
However, it was not quite that simple. It also turned out, according
to news re****ts, that the banner was made, by a private contractor,
with the help of White House staff.
And there can be little doubt that those White House staff ensured
that the banner was correctly placed for the cameras.
Update: I have had an e-mail from a navy veteran who says he was on
the flight deck that day: "After 10 months at sea, the ****p's mission
was accomplished, and we were going home. That was our banner. The
President was there to visit us, our banner happened to be in the
cameras view. I am sure that it made a great back drop, but the whole
scandal of this banner that was belonging to my ****pmates is
ridiculous to those of us who were there. It was our banner and our
day."
So much about that visit was planned for effect - the location, the
president dressed in combat gear, landing in the co-pilot's seat of a
Navy S-3 when he could have used a helicopter, the television
cameras.
Rumsfeld intervention
The banner destroyed the care that the administration had taken over
the speech.
The Defence Secretary at the time, Donald Rumsfeld, told journalist
Bob Woodward in an interview in 2006 that he had edited the speech's
draft, which had included the contentious phrase.
President Bush is well aware that the banner should have been much
more specific
Dana Perino
White House press secretary
"I took 'mission accomplished' out," he said.
"I was in Baghdad, and I was given a draft of that thing to look at.
And I just died, and I said 'my God, it's too conclusive'. And I fixed
it and sent it back... and they fixed the speech, but not the sign."
Mr Bush did in fact use the phrase himself a month later, telling
American troops in Qatar: "America sent you on a mission to remove a
grave threat and to liberate an oppressed people, and that mission has
been accomplished."
Afghanistan, too
And Mr Rumsfeld himself said, on the same day as the Abraham Lincoln
event, that major combat in Afghanistan had also ended.
He declared in Kabul: "We're at a point where we clearly have moved
from major combat activity to a period of stability and stabilisation
and reconstruction activities. The bulk of this country today is
permissive, it's secure."
There is not much optimism about Iraq these days
The story of the banner would have made a good episode of the US
television series The West Wing.
One can imagine the excited planning and then the gradual realisation
over the following months that it was not yet mission accomplished.
The face of the White House director of communications, Toby, would
have turned even sourer than usual. Chief of staff Leo would have
grunted.
The White House, five years on, acknowledges that it was not well
thought out.
Press secretary Dana Perino said: "President Bush is well aware that
the banner should have been much more specific and said 'mission
accomplished' for these sailors who are on this ****p on their mission.
And we have certainly paid a price for not being more specific on that
banner."
The speech
And the speech itself?
What is interesting about that is how much optimism (and
determination) it displayed, not just about Iraq, but about other
areas of combat that are still at issue.
"In the battle of Afghanistan, we destroyed the Taleban... "
"From Pakistan to the Philippines to the Horn of Africa, we are
hunting down al-Qaeda killers."
"The war on terror is not over; yet it is not endless. We do not know
the day of final victory, but we have seen the turning of the tide."
Paul.Reynolds-INTERNET@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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