The number of U.S. servicemen killed in Iraq rose sharply in April after two months of declines. Fifty-one Americans died in Iraq during April, with terrorist attacks escalating in the last few days. These are the unfortunate costs of nation-building in a place that is not a nation, but a geographic construct put together by colonial meddlers many decades ago. It's two years and a day since President Bush made his "mission accomplished" speech atop an aircraft carrier. If we accomplished the mission, then what are we still doing in Iraq?

Daniel,

I'm in the process of reading the section of your book regarding Leo Strauss. I agree with your point that Iraq was/is a geographical construct of colonial meddlers. I would agree with your statement regarding the 'mission accomplished' speech asking why we are still there if that was true, but I interpret it differently.

For example, WWII VE day was May 8th, however, german insurgency continued for a time after that. I'll concede I am unaware of how long after VE day it went on. I see the mission accomplished speech as a similar milestone to VE day (although on quite a bit smaller scale, and for lesser justification). Was the statement a bit of hubris on the Bush administration's part...maybe so.

What "mission" are you refering to? Defeating the Iraqi military? Instituting an Iraqi government? Eliminating the insurgency? Peace in Iraq?

Distinctions get in the way of rhetoric, but they're useful for accurately portraying the facts.

Brad: I didn't refer to a "mission." Bush did. You might want to take your question up with him. As a fellow Texan, you stand a greater chance of getting it answered by the president than I do. But I share your question: what is the current mission?

John: Thanks for reading my book. On the German "insurgency," there really wasn't much of one--or at least one comparable to the insurgency in Iraq. A 2003 study by the Rand Corporation reports: "U.S. officials anticipated and planned to deal with significant residual German resistance following the surrender of its armed forces. Yet no resistance of consequence emerged then or at any time thereafter." There have been more than 1,300 Americans killed in Iraq after 5/1/03. How many Americans did the German resitance kill after 5/45? I'm not aware of any, but I'm not an expert on the matter. Perhaps some enterprising or expert reader can come up with an answer.

Dan Flynn: "If we accomplished the mission, then what are we still doing in Iraq?"

Brad: Read the preceding line slowly this time and it will dawn on you that my use of the word mission referred to GWB's use--which I quoted in the previous sentence. Bush is referring to a mission and I am referring to Bush's "mission accomplished" rhetoric in that last line. I don't know what Bush's mission is because I don't know if Bush knows what Bush's mission is.

There really seems to have been no significant resistance once the Allied troops (huge armies in fact) had completely come to occupy Germany. The difference in troop presence surely plays a part in the greater scale of resistance in Iraq. Also, the German people were much more homogeneous than Iraqis who don't constitute a "people" or a "nation" as you point out.

I think you make a good point to Dan Brad, at least, if Bush wasn't clear about what "mission" he was talking about than what mission does Dan take him to be referring to. However, I still think Dan's question remains of, well, what are we doing there exactly.

It is really mind-boggling to think that Bush said that over 2 years ago, wow.

Bush's "Mission Accomplished" line while wearing flight suit and landing on the air craft carrier was possibly one of the dumbest things a politician has ever done. As President, his job should be to actually act as commander in chief and win the war, not to engage in acts of hubris and political grand standing. Oops!! I don't want to attribute motives to him. The last time I did that, on another thread, I ended up looking rather stupid!! Suffice it to say, I am not a Bush fan. What does seem clear to me, is we will need to improve our intellegence capabilities. The government has failed to: 1.) locate Saddam's missing WMD or even be able to determine what happened to it. 2.) anticipate the insurgency. This just scratches the surface. I think they made some miscalculations here because it seems to me the American and allied foreign policy establishments tend to view things such as Iran's nuclear threat, North Korea's nuclear threat, the threat posed by Al Qaeda, and the beligerence of Russia and China among other things as separate and distinct threats. If they haven't already, I think they need to start viewing these threats as linked together. When you evaluate Iraq alone, under Saddam Huessein, against the United States military, Iraq probably came accross looking like a weak country. When we factor in the fact that Saddam's Iraq enjoyed alliances with Russia, China, the major players within the EU such as France and Germany, terrorist organizations such as Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, and God only knows who else, all of a sudden Iraq looks like a very formidable enemy.

Iraq, under Saddam, served as a terrorist sanctuary. I do not see how you are going to win a war by allowing the terrorists to keep that sanctuary. It seems to me to date the real value of the Iraq war has been that it has diverted terrorists resources that would have been used elsewhere to Iraq.

What it ultimately comes down to is where do you want your front line in the war to be? Would you rather have the front line in Baghdad or Boston and will we make the strategic corrections we need to make to ensure that we win the war?

Who says Bush wasn't clear? When he landed on the aircraft carrier do you suppose he meant "reconstruction accomplished"? Please. It was an obvious reference to the defeat of the Iraqi military.

For Dan to then ask "If we accomplished the mission, then what are we still doing in Iraq?" is nothing more than a rhetorical play on the word 'mission'. One mission has been accompished, another has not. It's not that difficult.

It's amazing how enthralled people can be over two words.

If you take Tommy Franks on his word then he explained the reasoning quite well... http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/nation/9304837.htm

"That was not so everyone could have a victory lap," Franks said in a telephone interview Monday. "We'd been given to believe that once major hostilities were over, we would have lots and lots more help from the international community."

In other words, put an end to phase 3 operations.

Brad: Mission, whatever it was, obviously wasn't accomplished. We're still there, after all. As B.Poster notes, Bush's remarks and the event itself was an act hubris. About ten percent of American war deaths had occured when Bush made his "Mission Accomplished" speech. In a lot of ways, that ill-advised event was very un-Bushlike. Unlike many of his camp followers, Bush has been careful not to set timetables.

Here's the deal: when it's "mission accomplished" you go home. When it's not "mission accomplished," you stay until it is. Try as you might, you can't reconcile the foolish rhetoric of 5/1/3 with the unpleasant reality of 5/1/5. Mission accomplished doesn't mean mission a quarter accomplished or mission half accomplished. It means mission accomplished.

I objected to the mission from the outset, but at least at the beginning the goals were more concrete. Some of them, such as the capture of Saddam, were reached. The mission has "evolved." In the spring of '03, our military acted as a military. Today, they're taking on the role of cop and social worker. The mission is more amorphous now.

Is there any question that Bush's declaration of Mission Accomplished was Monstrously premature?

I don't think there really is.

I'll agree, the "Mission Accomplished" thing was a bad decision. However, it isn't as clear cut as everyone makes it. As Dave Kopel writes in his 59 Deceits in Fahrenheit 9/11:

Fahrenheit shows Bush giving a speech on the aircraft carrier, with the famous "Mission accomplished" banner in the background. Bush says, "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the Battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed." The scene immediately shifts to an explosion in Iraq. But Bush never promised that all fighting was over. His next words were "And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country." He also stated, "We have difficult work to do in Iraq. We are bringing order to parts of that country that remain dangerous."

The other major "mission" -- establishing free elections and representative government -- has also largely been accomplished. It's pretty amazing that it happened in less than two years. I'm glad we pulled some troops out after the January elections, and I hope the rest of the troops are out of there as soon as possible.

-ben

Bush's "Mission Accomplished" line while wearing flight suit and landing on the air craft carrier was possibly one of the dumbest things a politician has ever done.

Cmon B. Poster are you telling me you didnt like it when Bush pulled a Bill Pullman from Independence Day?

James

I did not like that stunt at all. I cringed when I first saw it. It was an act of unbridled hubris. In the first post, I accused him of "political grand standing." That part may not be correct. It could be that he was simply very happy about removing the former Iraqi regime from power and wished to celebrate, after all, removing that regime was a very beautiful thing.

Bill Pullman in Independce Day? Its been awhile since I saw the movie. If memory serves correctly, the president was a fighter pilot in Desert Storm. When the aliens attacked, he got out his flight gear and flew a fighter plane to fight the aliens because any and all qualified pilots were needed.

President Bush flew no missions in Operation Iraqi Freedom that I am aware of. I can understand his desire to celebrate with the troops but there are better ways to do this. I strongly suspect, if he knew then what he knows now, he would not have done what he did and he would have used different words than "mission accomplished."

Geez B dont take GW flying on to an aircraft carrier seriously. Sounds like someone needs a hug.

GW Bush took landing on the aircraft carrier and the "Mission Accomplished" line very seriously. What with all the hoopla that surrounded the event. As I stated before, his job is to win the war, not to engage in the head of state equivalent of "trash-talking." I do take it very seriously. I believe the very survival of our civilization is at stake.

How is it that we conclude Iraq is "not really a nation?" Iraq is recognized by the entire world as a nation. Well at least most of it anyway. At this time, I'm not really an expert on the history of Iraq or how it came about. Every nation, including the United States, began somewhere and at some time. By the colonial meddlers I think Britian is being reffered to here. If so, this just goes to show how fortunes change. If Britian is the former colonial meddler, Saddam Huessein's Iraq wielded more influence on the world stage than Britian the former colonial meddler now does.

First of all, Bush never said "mission accomplished". That statement was borne by a banner requested by and installed by Navy personnel. What Mr. Bush said was "major combat operations have ended". In other words, the standing army of Iraq was defeated. The mission of ousting Saddam Hussein was accomplished (my words, not Bush's). He never said, or even implied, that it was all over and we could go home. He stated several times that there was still much to do and that the work would continue to be dangerous (although statistically less dangerous than living in Washington DC...a factoid not often mentioned in this context).

As a 21 year (40% disabled) vet, I have no trouble understanding the distinction between "mission accomplished" and "the war is over". Notwithstanding the fact that Bush never said it...why is it so hard for you to understand?

Curtis

Thank you very much for your service to our country. You are correct. GW Bush did not utter those words. I mis-wrote. I apologize for the confusion. Having said this, given the meticulous planning that appeared to go into this, I think it is unlikely that he did not know the banner was going to be in the background. I see your point about the "mission accomplished" line. I think I do you recall the "major combat operations have ended" portion of his speech. We have lost more troops since those words were uttered than we lost before they were uttered. Please understand I am a supporter of the operations there. It does appear to me as though the Bush administration underestimated the difficulty of this part of the war.

I don't find it quite as unbelievable that GWB didn't know about the banner. He has a lot on his plate. He may make some decisions about where he goes and what he does, but the details of how, when, and the pomp and circumstance involved is left up to others. My understanding of the situation is that the Captain of the ship (possibly by request of members of the crew) told the whitehouse that they planned to put up such a banner for the visit. The whitehouse underlings liked the idea and decided to provide the banner instead of having the ship's people make it from scratch. The banner was brought out and put up as part of the preparations. There is no reason to believe that GWB had anything to do with its placement or any knowledge that it would be there. It's possible, but not a given...or even likely for that matter. I've seen too many of these dog and pony shows to think that GWB had anything to do with the planning for the "decorations" for this event.

Your second point is that, due to the losses, we should assume that our leaders underestimated the difficulty of "winning the peace". I believe they may have underestimated it to some extent, but not egregiously so. It's pretty easy to sit in your comfy chair opining through a computer keyboard about decisions made by people with ultimate responsiblity for hundreds of thousands of lives. They had to balance estimates of the ferocity of the terrorists resistance against costs, both monetarily and in human capital, of moving larger numbers of forces or equipment into the region. They made the best decisions they could based upon the intel they had and the estimates of the opposition they would face. Perhaps they underestimated. I am not quite so quick to condemn for it if they did.

In every major conflict (with the exception of Vietnam, in which the media celebrated US defeats and even cast US victories as defeats) victorious battles, missions and operations have been celebrated. When the US Marines succeeded in taking Iwo Jima, that was celebrated as a great victory. I don't think anyone had any misconceptions that it meant we wouldn't have any more losses in the war. They knew that it was just one step toward the ultimate goal. The mission of taking Iwo Jima was complete, but many more fighting men would lose their lives in finishing off the Japanese.

Bush's celebratory announcement of the successful overthrow of Hussein's government and defeat of Iraq's standing military was not a poor decision in my opinion. It was a morale booster for the military who had executed a virtually flawless campaign and for the country as a whole. I reiterate that, in the speech, GWB repeatedly warned that the fight wasn't over and that the work that remained would continue to be dangerous. He wasn't wrong.

I am no Bush apologist. He has done many things during his tenure that I'm not enamored with and some things that have flat out p**sed me off. His so called "mission accomplished" speech isn't one of them.