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Born at the Crest of the Empire

Monday, May 01, 2006

Mission accomplished was three years ago today.

Did you know....
Monday marks the third anniversary of President Bush’s jet landing on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln and his speech declaring major fighting in Iraq over, all in front of a giant “Mission Accomplished” banner.

This is from E&P, and they also have excerpts of the NYTimes coverage around the "Mission Accomplished" speech, lauding Bush as a hero and the operation as mostly a success. If you want to take a trip in the Koolaid wayback machine, this is the place.

6 Comments:

  • 3 years since the Mission Accomplished photo op. Iraqcasualties.org lists 2,400 Americans killed. Since the mission is far from accomplished (a CNN poll released this morning says only 14% of Americans believe the mission actually has been accomplished), you wonder how large the list of American as well as international and Iraqi civilian casaulties is going to grow. 3,000? 5,000?

    Also, how will the November midterm pullout affect the security in Iraq? The CW numbers you hear are about 50,000 troops coming home in October or so, which leaves about 85,000 left in country. Given the troubles with the Iraqi army and police, are 80,000 American troops enough to handle a big blow-up?

    By Blogger Reality-Based Educator, at 5:57 AM  

  • I don't think so. I think they're going to talk about big withdrawals and then not do much about them. I do think there will be a token withdrawal in late summer early fall before the election, but I don't think it will be significant.

    I understand the domestic political motivations for withdrawal, but at the same time, politically, if they withdraw those troops and Iraq gets worse, they lose as well.

    So, I'm expecting announcements of withdrawals, but no real movement unless something drastically changes on the security front in Iraq.

    Just my opinion.

    Mike

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 8:49 AM  

  • That's the name of the machine!

    Damn. What we have lost in the past three years.

    By Blogger Bravo 2-1, at 12:01 PM  

  • glad you mentioned this.

    By Blogger Yukkione, at 12:25 PM  

  • CNN was hammering this story pretty hard here in Europe. I'm wondering how much time it is getting in the States. I'd say the May Day demonstrations are the only thing getting more attention today. (At least until the Bolivia story broke).

    By Blogger Praguetwin, at 8:35 PM  

  • It got mixed mention in the US from what I saw. Fairly prominent mention with the picture at the top of the news, second or third slot in the teaser section, but very little actual coverage. Maybe a short paragraph with pictures from the speech. However there were alot of mentions of how many US soldiers have died since the speech.

    Mike

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 8:49 AM  

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