Excerpted from the Washington Post.
“…In a news briefing on board Air Force One en route to Florida, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino bristled when asked about Bush’s veto of a bill that Democrats are sending him on the fourth anniversary of a speech in which he prematurely declared an end to major combat operations.
“Even though the Democrats won’t say so on the record, it is a trumped-up political stunt that is the height of cynicism, and it’s very disturbing to think that they possibly held up this money for the troops and the troops’ families and the resources they need to try some PR stunt on this day,” Perino said.
The speech four years ago “has been widely misconstrued, and I encourage people to go back and read it,” she said. “The president did say we had a long and difficult road ahead of us. We’re moving from a dictatorship to democracy.”
Asked if Bush regrets the “mission accomplished speech,” Perino said, “Look, I’ve never heard him describe it that way, absolutely not. Let me just remind everybody . . . the President never said ‘mission accomplished.’ I realize that the banner said ‘mission accomplished.’ That was specific to the mission of that ship. They were supposed to be deployed for six months. They were deployed well beyond that. I think they’d gone to both Iraq and Afghanistan. And that’s what that banner was referring to.”
After arriving on the carrier deck wearing a flight suit and carrying a helmet, Bush stood below a huge banner saying “Mission Accomplished” and addressed the crew. “My fellow Americans, major combat operations in Iraq have ended,” he announced. “In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.”
Dana Perino is a lying sack of crap. The “Mission Accomplished” banner and “War President in a Flight Suit” were props for the 2004 re-election campaign. This is standard Republican fudging. Keep changing the story until it fits. We were supposed to go to Iraq for WMDs and then it was to bring democracy to people who never asked for it.
Major combat has ended. And so was any plan for securing the peace in Iraq. Call your Congressman and urge passage of the next Congressional spendbill for Iraq. Oh wait, Campbell is my guy. My call would fall on deaf ears.
An update:ÂÂ
Check out this YouTube video on how the White House scrubbed the Mission Accomplished sign from the record. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-u2ITs4yIAE