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by Robert Fantina
It is difficult to forget the picture: U.S. President George W. Bush, dressed in a flight uniform he never wore in battle, perched on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln. Standing proudly beneath a banner reading ‘Mission Accomplished,’ Mr. Bush declared, “in the Battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.”
The fact that many of America’s long-term, trusted allies decided to pass on this disaster-in-the-making was not noted by Mr. Bush at that time. And what, exactly, had been accomplished was never adequately answered either.
What the ‘mission’ was had never been clearly defined: if it was to protect America from Iraq’s threat of weapons of mass destruction, then there never was any mission; Iraq had no such weapons. If the ‘mission’ was to prevent Iraq from obtaining nuclear weapons, again there was no mission: Iraq had no such active designs.
If the mission, as skeptics might say, was to secure Iraq’s oil fields for American consumption, than it had not then, and still has not, been accomplished. If the mission was to usher in a new era of peace and freedom for Iraq’s citizens, than that could not have been what Mr. Bush was referring to.
As of May 1 of 2003, the date Mr. Bush spoke with the ‘Mission
Accomplished’ banner as his backdrop, nothing worthwhile had been
accomplished for Iraq. Saddam Hussein had been overthrown, so if Mr.
Bush chooses to see that as his major accomplishment in Iraq, so be it.
Today, four years later, there is still no worthwhile accomplishment to
which Mr. Bush can point. But while nothing of worth has been
accomplished in Iraq, there certainly have been ‘accomplishments.’
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At least two million Iraqi citizens have fled their homes;
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Over 600,000 Iraq citizens have been killed;
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Those remaining have lost regular access to electricity, running water and medical care;
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Hostilities
between Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds have escalated to the point that the
one peaceful nation is now embroiled in a horrifically bloody civil war.
Not only has Iraq suffered from Mr. Bush’s ‘accomplishments:’
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Over 3,000 Americans are dead; tens of thousands have been seriously injured;
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Hostility toward the U.S. has increased around the world;
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The federal deficit has ballooned to historic proportions;
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Monies needed desperately within the U.S. for such immediate needs as the rebuilding of New Orleans have been squandered.
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American
veterans injured in the war have been neglected, abused and ignored in
hospitals created, funded and run specifically to meet their needs.
By July 2 of that year, with an additional 65 Americans dead in
Iraq, Mr. Bush again demonstrated his usual chest-thumping mentality,
when he said the following: “There are some who feel like that the
conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is bring
them on. We've got the force necessary to deal with the security
situation.”
Iraqi freedom fighters responded to Mr. Bush’s challenge at that time
and in the four years since. The result is over 3,000 American soldiers
dead, and tens of thousands injured.
Four years later, the ‘force necessary to deal with the security
situation’ that Mr. Bush so arrogantly described is now stretched so
thin that deployments have been extended to 15 months. As early as
January 24, 2006, Andrew Krepinevich, a retired Army officer, prepared
a report for the Pentagon in which he concluded that “the Army cannot
sustain the pace of troop deployments to Iraq long enough to break the
back of the insurgency.” Then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
dismissed Mr. Krepinevich’s assessment, saying, “It's just not
consistent with the facts.” Facts are something Mr. Rumsfeld seldom
troubled to become closely acquainted with. It was only a few months
later that Vice President Dick Cheney, another stranger to facts,
declared that the insurgency was in its ‘last throes.’ Seven months
later Mr. Bush himself had to concede, if not by his words then by his
actions, that Mr. Cheney’s optimistic prediction had fallen far short
of accuracy, when he announced the ‘surge’ to help quell the violence
his invasion had caused.
On April 26, 2007, the Democratic-controlled Congress finally passed
legislation, in spite of Mr. Bush’s promised veto, funding the war but
mandating dates for the start and completion of troop withdrawal. That
the bill will in all likelihood reach the president’s desk on the
anniversary of his disgraceful ‘Mission Accomplished’ speech is more
than a little ironic. The words of White House spokeswoman Dana Perino
concerning that possibility are astounding: she said that sending it to
the White House on that day would be “a ridiculous P.R. stunt.” This
from an administration that, based on the ‘Mission Accomplished’
charade alone, is expert on ridiculous public relations stunts.
Congress will need, after Mr. Bush’s veto, to create a new bill. The
president has said that he will not sign any bill that contains
timetables for withdrawal. Yet Rep. John Murtha (D- PA) does not
believe Mr. Bush will receive such a bill. Said he: “I think everything
that passes will have some sort of condition (placed) on it.” One
wonders when Mr. Bush will recognize that the Constitutionally-decreed
balance of powers is in effect: Congress legislates with the President.
When the American public has spoken clearly its desire for its soldiers
to leave Iraq to settle its own differences, when the non-partisan Iraq
Study Group has recommended negations over increased military presence,
when members of his own party are fleeing his failed programs, it is
long past time for Mr. Bush to accept the reality of his dismal failure
in Iraq. Until he does so, Iraqis and Americans will continue to suffer
and die needlessly. Their blood is on his hands.
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