‘Mission Accomplished’: ‘What Mission, Mr Bush?’ asks Hillary Clinton

(Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton addresses the California Democratic Convention in San Diego, Saturday, April 28, 2007. Photo courtesy AP)

Public memory is notoriously short. Let us jog our memory a bit. US President George W. Bush once made a dramatic statement that the ‘mission in Iraq has been accomplished’.

In the next two or three days the world would observe the fourth anniversary of that memorable President Bush speech, which has since become a classic sample of the ‘bluff and bluster’ game of Bush and Co.

On May 1, 2003, the world leaders heard Bush’s unbelievable claim and began to wonder whether an era of peace and security was round the corner. The US citizens breathed a sigh of relief and dreamt of peaceful flow of cheap oil from Iraqi fields to sustain their lifestyles.

Let me quote from Wikipedia: ” ‘Mission Accomplished’, a military phrase associated with completing a mission, is in recent years particularly associated with a sign displayed on the USS Abraham Lincoln as President George W. Bush addressed the United States on May 1, 2003.

(President George W. Bush addresses sailors and the nation from the flight deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln of the coast of San Diego, California May 1, 2003.)

“Bush stated at the time that this was the end to major combat operations in Iraq. While this statement did coincide with an end to the conventional phase of the war, Bush’s assertion — and the sign — became controversial after guerilla warfare in Iraq increased during the Iraqi insurgency. The vast majority of casualties, among both coalition and Iraqi combatants, and from Iraqi civilians, have occurred after the speech.”

How time flies!!!

On Saturday US Democrat Hillary Clinton mocked the US President for his ‘Mission Accomplished’ speech and said his conduct of the Iraq war was ‘one of the darkest blots on leadership we’ve ever had.’

Addressing delegates at the California State Democratic Party convention, Clinton said that if elected president in 2008, she would end the war.

That ‘Mission Accomplished’ speech, Clinton said, was “one of the most shameful episodes in American history. … The only mission he accomplished was the re-election of Republicans.”

For more on this please click here…

Meanwhile does anyone remember about the much touted American-financed rebuilding programmes in Iraq?

Please click here to read about them…

“In a troubling sign for the American-financed rebuilding program in Iraq, inspectors for a federal oversight agency have found that in a sampling of eight projects that the United States had declared successes, seven were no longer operating as designed because of plumbing and electrical failures, lack of proper maintenance, apparent looting and expensive equipment that lay idle…”