Mission Accomplished speech
On May 1, 2003, United States President George W. Bush gave a televised speech on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln. Bush, who had launched the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq six weeks earlier, mounted a podium before a White House-produced banner that read "Mission Accomplished". Reading from a prepared text, he said, "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed" because "the regime [the Iraqi dictatorship of Saddam Hussein] is no more".[1] Although Bush went on to say that "Our mission continues" and "We have difficult work to do in Iraq,"[1] his words implied that the Iraq War was over and America had won.
"Mission Accomplished" redirects here. For other uses, see Mission Accomplished (disambiguation).
Bush's assertions—and the sign itself—became controversial as the Iraqi insurgency gained pace and developed into a full-on sectarian war. The vast majority of casualties, U.S. and Iraqi, military and civilian, occurred after the speech.[2] U.S. troops fought in Iraq for eight more years.
In modern cultural relevance, the phrase "Mission Accomplished" is frequently used to refer to the perils of declaring victory too early in crises.[3]
Subsequent events[edit]
In November 2008, soon after the presidential election in which Democrat Barack Obama was chosen to succeed him, Bush indicated that he regretted the use of the banner, telling CNN, "To some, it said, well, 'Bush thinks the war in Iraq is over,' when I didn't think that. It conveyed the wrong message."[18]
In January 2009, Bush said, "Clearly, putting 'Mission Accomplished' on an aircraft carrier was a mistake."[19]
In 2010, the "Mission Accomplished" banner was transferred from the National Archives to the collection of the George W. Bush Presidential Center. The banner is not on display.[20]
American deaths in the Iraq War totaled 104 when President Bush gave his Mission Accomplished speech. A further 3,424 Americans were killed in the war through February 2011, when American combat operations there halted.[21]
Iraq War opponents have used the phrase "mission accomplished" in an ironic sense, while others have non-politically cited it as an example of a general public relations failure. In addition, some mainstream outlets questioned the state of the war with derivatives of this statement. For example, the October 6, 2003, cover of Time featured the headline "Mission Not Accomplished":[22]