["Mission Accomplished" Photo-op]

On May 2, 2003 President Bush, clad in a flight suit, was flown by Navy jet to the USS Abraham Lincoln where he addressed the troops in front of a banner declaring "Mission Accomplished." The event was widely seen as a staged photo-op to portray a victorious head of state. At first, Bush claimed the sign came from the men on the ship who were proclaiming their own mission accomplished. Later, the White House admitted that the sign had been made by the President's own staff, presumably under the direction of Karl Rove. A year later, when the war turned sour, the banner was widely commented on as premature a declaration of victory—"Photo-op Accomplished." [Section by Gio Messner]

Dana Bash: "White House Pressed on "Mission Accomplished" Sign: October 29, 2003
"The president told reporters the sign was put up by the Navy, not the White House. "I know it was attributed somehow to some ingenious advance man from my staff -- they weren't that ingenious, by the way," the president said Tuesday. Now his statements are being parsed even further. Navy and administration sources said that though the banner was the Navy's idea, the White House actually made it. Bush offered the explanation after being asked whether his speech declaring an end to major combat in Iraq under the "Mission Accomplished" banner was premature, given that U.S. casualties in Iraq since then have surpassed those before it."
[CNN]

David Kuhn: "'Mission Accomplished' Revisited": April 20, 2004
"I wish the banner was not up there," said White House top political adviser Karl Rove in April, while speaking with the editorial board of The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch. "I'll acknowledge the fact that it has become one of those convenient symbols." [...] "We put it up. We made the sign," Fleischer said. "But I think it accurately summed up where we were at the time, mission accomplished...the mission was to topple Saddam Hussein."
[CBS News]

Comments

[DebbieM]

General Tommy Franks was responsible for that banner. I wish people would get their facts straight. So much propaganda out there you don't know what to believe anymore. People read blogs on the internet and believe it's all the truth. Very dangerous.