Bush Defends Year-Ago Claim Of End of 'Major Combat' in Iraq

One year ago today, President Bush donned a flight suit to land on an aircraft carrier and declare "victory" in Iraq beneath a banner that read "Mission Accomplished," and Democrats fretted that the election -- not just the war -- might be over.

(snip)

Nevertheless, Bush stoutly defended his trip to the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln when a reporter asked him about it in the Rose Garden yesterday. Bush said the mission had been the removal of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

"A year ago, I did give the speech from the carrier, saying that we had achieved an important objective, that we'd accomplished a mission, which was the removal of Saddam Hussein," Bush said. "And as a result, there are no longer torture chambers or rape rooms or mass graves in Iraq. As a result, a friend of terror has been removed, and now sits in a jail."

(snip)

White House officials said they expect frequent reruns of the carrier footage. Martha Joynt Kumar, a professor at Towson University in Maryland who is an authority on the history of White House communications, said the carrier landing "looked too good to be true" and said Bush's aides are so skilled at stagecraft that the visuals "can overtake or confuse the message."



more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56540-2004Apr30.html

for an update on torture

gawd