Q Mr. President, if I may take you back to May 1st when you stood on the USS Lincoln under a huge banner that said, “Mission Accomplished.” At that time you declared major combat operations were over, but since that time there have been over 1,000 wounded, many of them amputees who are recovering at Walter Reed, 217 killed in action since that date. Will you acknowledge now that you were premature in making those remarks?
THE PRESIDENT: Nora, I think you ought to look at my speech. I said, Iraq is a dangerous place and we’ve still got hard work to do, there’s still more to be done. And we had just come off a very successful military operation. I was there to thank the troops.
The “Mission Accomplished” sign, of course, was put up by the members of the USS Abraham Lincoln, saying that their mission was accomplished. I know it was attributed some how to some ingenious advance man from my staff — they weren’t that ingenious, by the way. But my statement was a clear statement, basically recognizing that this phase of the war for Iraq was over and there was a lot of dangerous work. And it’s proved to be right, it is dangerous in Iraq.
Okay, the Lincoln crew may have physically hung the sign, but that isn’t the real question here. The issue is whether the White House endorsed the misleading (or flat-out wrong) message during the staged event.
Reportedly, the White House arranged for “a private vendor to produce the sign.” Moreover, according to this article (via Daily Kos), the White House deliberately schemed to incorporate the banner in the photo op address:
The most elaborate � and criticized � White House event so far was Bush�s speech aboard the Abraham Lincoln announcing the end of major combat in Iraq. White House officials say that a variety of people, including the president, came up with the idea, and that [White House communications staffer Scott] Sforza embedded himself on the carrier to make preparations days before Bush landed in a flight suit and made his early-evening speech.
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Media strategists noted afterward that Sforza and his aides had choreographed every aspect of the event, even down to the members of the Lincoln crew arrayed in coordinated colors over Bush�s right shoulder and the ��Mission Accomplished�� banner placed to capture the president and the celebratory two words in a single shot. The speech was specifically timed for what image-makers call ��magic-hour light,�� which cast a golden glow on Bush.
It’s kind of funny that Bush is trying to deflect blame now, almost six months after the fact. At the time no one at the White House attempted to revise set the record straight.
Why? Because then they wanted to take credit for the message, and now they don’t.
Interesting things are coming from Washington these days.