"Marvin The Paranoid Android" <marvin@galaxy.com> wrote in message
news:opsc2235imld1pme@pc...

Here's a report from the NYTimes in May '03.

At that time there were approx 150 military deaths in Iraq. Since that
time over 800 military deaths have occured.

Any more doubts about Bush's military genius?

And to top it off, there are no WMD's.

------------------------------------------------------------

WASHINGTON -- President Bush's made-for-television address tonight on

the

carrier Abraham Lincoln was a powerful, Reaganesque finale to a six-week
war. But beneath the golden images of a president steaming home with his
troops toward the California coast lay the cold political and military
realities that drove Mr. Bush's advisers to create the moment.

The president declared an end to major combat operations, White House,
Pentagon and State Department officials said, for three crucial reasons:
to signify the shift of American soldiers from the role of conquerors to
police, to open the way for aid from countries that refused to help
militarily and — above all — to signal to voters that Mr. Bush is

shifting

his focus from Baghdad to concerns at home.

Mr. Bush was careful, though, not to close the door completely on his
greatest political strength, his role as the warrior president who

struck

back after Sept. 11. For the first time in months, he reprised his most
emotional oratory from the attacks and directly tied it to Iraq and his
battle against terrorism.

"The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on

Sept.

11, 2001, and still goes on," he said.

Even so, administration officials acknowledged that Mr. Bush's

declaration

of an all-but-over war carried huge risks. Not only could Iraq blow up
again, they said, but major tasks were also unfinished. Weapons of mass
destruction have not been found, Saddam Hussein's fate is a mystery and
American troops remain under attack. Some political strategists say the
Republican advantage over Democrats on national security has never been
greater, and they questioned whether Mr. Bush should so quickly distance
himself from his role as commander in chief.

Mr. Bush himself cautioned about the risks, saying:

"We have difficult work to do in Iraq. We are bringing order to parts of
that country that remain dangerous. We are pursuing and finding leaders

of

the old regime, who will be held account for their crimes."

But when Karl Rove, his chief political adviser, happily told friends

last

week that Mr. Bush would soon declare the war over, it was a turning

point

that re-energized a White House domestic staff eager to step into the
light after months in the West Wing shadows. Mr. Bush's speech, a

cautious

victory dance, was intended to use the capital from the military success
to push forward his domestic agenda.

"The big event is over," Michael O'Hanlon, a military expert at the
Brookings Institution, said. "Why not take a victory lap, and what
politico would advise against it? Bush's tone is excellent right now.

He's

good at the emotions of war. He doesn't appear giddy. He doesn't appear
overcongratulatory. He doesn't have Rumsfeld's tendency to go around and
boast and taunt his critics."

Administration officials said the first reason for the speech, to
recognize the troops' shift to policing, was an effort to keep White

House

oratory in sync with reality. In military parlance, Mr. Bush was making

a

statement of the "commander's intent" to 300,000 members of the air,

land

and naval forces in the Persian Gulf that the war was essentially over,

an

important moment of psychological closure.

"This is the military," a senior administration official said. "They

don't

just roll in one day. Everything is defined. They need somebody to
declare, `This thing is over.' "

The statement was directed as much at civilians at home and abroad,

other

administration officials said, to make clear that the United States is
determined, eventually, to leave.

"This is the formalization that tells everybody we're not engaged in
combat anymore, we're prepared for getting out," a senior administration
official said.

The second reason for Mr. Bush's speech, to clear the way for countries
that did not contribute to combat operations, was also widely seen as an
opening of the door for humanitarian and nongovernmental organizations

to

move into Baghdad.

"It goes hand in hand with the military, essentially saying that it's a
much less dangerous environment for people to operate in," an
administration official said.

It was the third reason for the speech, changing the subject to domestic
concerns and Mr. Bush's future, that motivated the White House to create
an extraordinary moment of presidential political theater on the deck of
the Lincoln. Republicans noted that whoever came up with the idea of
having Mr. Bush jet onto the carrier in a flight suit, looking rugged

and

windblown while surrounded by sailors and fighter pilots, had earned the
day's pay.

The television images would quite likely be some of the final images of
the president at war, and White House advisers were clearly determined

to

make them lasting ones.

In a sense, Mr. Bush was leaving the political comforts of his role as
commander in chief and stepping into the possibly treacherous role as
steward of the economy.

"Let's face it, Bush's strength is his foreign policy leadership," said
Stephen Moore, president of the Club for Growth, a lobbying group that

has

close ties to the White House. "By turning away from foreign policy
issues, it makes him somewhat more vulnerable in that now people focus

on

jobs and the stock market and the economy generally."

Mr. Moore noted that in the last century no president had been

re-elected

when the stock market was down in his first term, with Jimmy Carter and
Herbert Hoover being prime examples.

But Mr. Bush, basking in the warm early evening light over the Pacific
Ocean, sounded the names of the presidents of his pantheon, Franklin D.
Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman and, of course, Ronald Reagan, who inspired

the

entire event.

Neocons will tell you that the Iraq war is now in a "long mop-up
operation" and that major combat has ended ! LOL...
And some dumb ***** named Gunner here told me that the "Mission
Accomplished" was meant for the crew of the aircraft carrier ! ! Their
mission had been accomplished, he wrote.
Dr. Blunt