Mission Accomplished

NH patriots recently marked the fifth anniversary of Mission Accomplished in Iraq. On May 1 2003, President Bush was flown onto the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN/72), strategically positioned 30 miles from San Diego harbor. White House art director, former TV producer Scott Sforza oversaw every aspect of the event down to the color-coordinated uniforms worn by the crew. Standing before a huge banner, the President announced that ‘major combat operations’ had ended in Iraq. That was then - this is now:

-When the President made his announcement, the total US dead in Iraq were 139. That number, as of this writing, is 4071.

-In 2003, the ‘mission’ in Iraq was variously defined as defeating Saddam Hussein, establishing democracy in Iraq and, of course, finding fictive weapons of mass destruction. Today, the mission has morphed into a full-blown occupation. US soldiers conduct house-to-house operations and increasingly rely on unmanned Hellfire drones which target the ‘enemy’ while inflicting unspeakable collateral damage to innocent civilians, usually women and children.

-The cost of the Iraq occupation, once said to be able to pay for itself, is now estimated at $5000 per second.

-Iraqi PM Nouri al Maliki, has repeatedly sought counsel and support from his Sh’ite brethren in Iran, whose president, Ahmadinejad, was warmly welcomed in Baghdad in early March. George W. Bush was relegated to a short, intensely guarded, furtive visit.

And where is the USS Abraham Lincoln now? The Lincoln has been dispatched to the Persian Gulf as a ‘reminder’ to Iran - part of the Administration’s 2008 presidential campaign ratcheting up a causus belli.
“Every Army of liberation has a half-life beyond which it turns into an Army of occupation,” Lieutenant General David H. Petraeus, January 2006.