White House admits fault on 'Mission Accomplished' banner

[Socrtease]

WASHINGTON - The White House said Wednesday that President Bush has paid a price for the "Mission Accomplished" banner that was flown in triumph five years ago but later became a symbol of U.S. misjudgments and mistakes in the long and costly war in Iraq.

Thursday is the fifth anniversary of Bush's dramatic landing in a Navy jet on an aircraft carrier homebound from the war. The USS Abraham Lincoln had launched thousands of airstrikes on Iraq.

"Major combat operations in Iraq have ended," Bush said at the time. "The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on Sept. 11, 2001, and still goes on." The "Mission Accomplished" banner was prominently displayed above him — a move the White House came to regret as the display was mocked and became a source of controversy.

After shifting explanations, the White House eventually said the "Mission Accomplished" phrase referred to the carrier's crew completing its 10-month mission, not the military completing its mission in Iraq. Bush, in October 2003, disavowed any connection with the "Mission Accomplished" message. He said the White House had nothing to do with the banner; a spokesman later said the ship's crew asked for the sign and the White House staff had it made by a private vendor.

"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 ship on their mission," White House press secretary Dana Perino said Wednesday. "And we have certainly paid a price for not being more specific on that banner. And I recognize that the media is going to play this up again tomorrow, as they do every single year."

She said what is important now is "how the president would describe the fight today. It's been a very tough month in Iraq, but we are taking the fight to the enemy."

At least 49 U.S. troops died in Iraq in April, making it the deadliest month since September when 65 U.S. troops died.

Now in its sixth year, the war in Iraq has claimed the lives of at least 4,061 members of the U.S. military. Only the Vietnam War (August 1964 to January 1973), the war in Afghanistan (October 2001 to present) and the Revolutionary War (July 1776 to April 1783) have engaged America longer.

Bush, in a speech earlier this month, said that "while this war is difficult, it is not endless."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080430...ccomplished;_ylt=AppH3GW_O3N9VkAB1xotoHus0NUE

 

[uscitizen]

Damo writes for the WH now ?

 

[Damocles]

No waiting, get ad hominem attacks before anybody says anything at all.

Do it often and especially in threads that the person you are attacking wouldn't normally post in.

 

[uscitizen]

Good advise.
Just hit me as your style of admitting you were wrong without admitting you were wrong

 

[Damocles]

Good advise.
Just hit me as your style of admitting you were wrong without admitting you were wrong

Ohhh...

Okay. I thought you were going to say I thought they were uber-smart for putting bush on a ship with a badly timed sign.

I've been working on the (picture Fonzie here), "I was wr-r--r--r--wr---" breath... "I was wr--r-"

Ah, you know what I mean...

 

[uscitizen]

I don't think putting bush anywhere is smart.
Out to pasture maybe, but he will still cost us millions per year.

 

[Cypress]

Priceless....

After shifting explanations, the White House eventually said the "Mission Accomplished" phrase referred to the carrier's crew completing its 10-month mission, not the military completing its mission in Iraq.

 

[meme]

What a stupid article.

shifting explanations...isn't that what someones gives when they were getting blowjobs under their desk..

 

[Diuretic]

Hubris. It's its own reward.

 

[Onceler]

What a stupid article.

shifting explanations...isn't that what someones gives when they were getting blowjobs under their desk..

Sure, because - as is so obvious now - it is so much worse & more damaging to America to have a President who gets blowjobs than it is to have a President who starts unnecessary wars with virtually no post-overthrow planning, so that we spend trillions, kill 10's of thousands & create a power vacuum right in the heart of the Middle East.

There's no comparison, really.

 

[uscitizen]

Yeah the old at least we are not worse than them song.
the notes are sour though.

 

[Jarod]

I love how they try to change the meaning as time passes. Just as they did with the WMD arguments.

THe funny part is how many fell for it! And how many got so hot over Bush in his jumpsuit.

If they ment mission accomplished for merely that ship, why the context of Bush's speech?

 

[Cypress]

What a stupid article.

shifting explanations...isn't that what someones gives when they were getting blowjobs under their desk..

How many people died because of clinton's BJ? And why is it that (apparently) sex starved republicans are still obsessed over a bj that happened a decade ago?

 

[meme]

You people are a joke to continue with this, how many people were killed from a blowjob..

Clinton sent our military all over the place, got them killed and people killed..He bombed Iraq, we had how many terrorist attacks against us during his Presidency?

I bet none of you were whining and ringing your hands and stomping your feet through all that, cause Clinton was a Democrat and he KNEW what was right...

 

[Onceler]

You people are a joke to continue with this, how many people were killed from a blowjob..

Clinton sent our military all over the place, got them killed and people killed..He bombed Iraq, we had how many terrorist attacks against us during his Presidency?

I bet none of you were whining and ringing your hands and stomping your feet through all that, cause Clinton was a Democrat and he KNEW what was right...

How do you know what I was thinking?

I'm not a hack like you. I can't remember the last time I supported an aggressive military action from America. I didn't think Clinton handled that aspect of foreign policy well at all, and was opposed to most of what he did.

However, none of it even remotely compares to the damage Bush has done in lives lost & American credibility lost. It's not even in the same ballpark. What a stupid comparison.

And if you want to talk non-domestic terrorist attacks, the total under Bush - in the hundreds, if not thousands at this point - eclipses those under Clinton.

 

[meme]

How do you know what I was thinking?

I'm not a hack like you. I can't remember the last time I supported an aggressive military action from America. I didn't think Clinton handled that aspect of foreign policy well at all, and was opposed to most of what he did.

However, none of it even remotely compares to the damage Bush has done in lives lost & American credibility lost. It's not even in the same ballpark. What a stupid comparison.

And if you want to talk non-domestic terrorist attacks, the total under Bush - in the hundreds, if not thousands at this point - eclipses those under Clinton.

Yeah yeah yeah...Pfeeeesh

 

[Onceler]

Yeah yeah yeah...Pfeeeesh

That's actually one of the most intelligent responses I've ever gotten from a Bushie....

 

[meme]

That's actually one of the most intelligent responses I've ever gotten from a Bushie....

You should try stand-up.
And you don't know who I voted for, now do you..

 

[blackascoal]

The truth is "Mission Accomplished" couldn't have been more correct and I can easily defend Bush for displaying it.

The problem is that most people thought Bush was talking about the war, when in fact he was talking about the real mission why the neocons created and fostered the call for war, and the mission planned by Cheney and the oil corporations in secret meetings they rufuse to reveal either the agenda of or even who participated.

Since the beginning of the war the oil corporations have made more money than any corporations in the history of Man.

THAT mission was accomplished.

 

[NOVA]

shifting explanations? There ARE NO SHIFTING EXPLANATIONS.....

How freekin' desperate must you be to re-hash old Dem. lies from 2003....??

This was reported in 2003 and in our normal world of reality...nothing is different today....sorry to spoil your fantasy...



http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/10/28/mission.accomplished/

White House spokesman Scott McClellan told CNN that in preparing for the speech, Navy officials on the carrier told Bush aides they wanted a "Mission Accomplished" banner, and the White House agreed to create it.

"We took care of the production of it," McClellan said. "We have people to do those things. But the Navy actually put it up."


Assigning responsibility elsewhere, especially to the military, is not a typical move for the Bush administration and raised suspicions among critics.

Cmdr. Conrad Chun, a Navy spokesman, defended the president's assertion.

"The banner was a Navy idea, the ship's idea," Chun said.

"The banner signified the successful completion of the ship's deployment," he said, noting the Abraham Lincoln was deployed 290 days, longer than any other nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in history.

-----Then the Dem. lies.....

At the time of the event, Democrats worried President Bush would use his speech and the dramatic landing for political gain.

On Tuesday, Democratic presidential candidates, hoping to make it a political liability for Bush, accused him of trying to shift blame for the stagecraft to the Navy.

"Landing on an aircraft carrier and saying 'mission accomplished' didn't end a war, and standing in the Rose Garden and stating that 'Iraq is a dangerous place' does nothing to make American troops safer," Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts said in a written statement Tuesday.