The Broken Telegraph

I just finished reading the newly released ‘Mission Accomplished! Or How We Won The War In Iraq.’  Many remember the President’s infamous visit to the aircraft carrier in May of 2003, where he emerged from a S-3B Viking aircraft wearing a flight suit and later gave a  ”victory” speech that was premature to say the least. The title of the book borrows from the huge banner that hung behind the President as he spoke to the cameras on that day- only this time it’s meant to be tongue in cheek.  It’s a quick read and a pretty devastating one, too.

“Our mission is clear in Iraq. Should we have to go in, our mission is very clear: disarmament.” -George W. Bush, March 6, 2003

‘Mission Accomplished’ works so well because it is really just a compilation of quotes- about Iraq and related matters- spoken by everyone from the hawks at the top of the Bush Administration to the trumpeters in the media. The authors (Christopher Cerf and Victor S. Navasky along with illustrator Robert Grossman) frequently interrupt the rhetoric with factual rebuttals and clever sketches, but they mostly let the politicians and pundits hang themselves by their own words.

“Our forces have been given a clear mission: to end a regime that threatened its neighbors and the world with weapons of mass destruction and to free a people that have suffered far too long.” -George W. Bush, April 14, 2003

These two guys did a massive amount of research, and I want to share a bit of it with you in hopes that you’ll share your thoughts with me. First, a look back at the stated mission in Iraq (keeping in mind the previous two quotes): 

“Our mission is clear…[in Iraq], and that is to train the Iraqis so they can do the fighting…[and] make sure they can stand up to defend their freedoms, which they want to do.” -George W. Bush, June 2, 2005

 

“The principal task of our military is to find and defeat the terrorists.” -George W. Bush, June 28, 2005

 

“American forces are…in Iraq not as a favor to its government or as a reward for its conduct. They are there as an expression of the American national interest to prevent the Iranian combination of imperialism and fundamentalist ideology from dominating a region on which the energy supplies of the industrial democracies depend.” -Henry Kissinger, former U.S. Secretary of State, January 19, 2007

 

“If the president wants to go to war, our job is to find the intelligence to allow him to do so.” -Alan Foley, Director, CIA Weapons, Intelligence, Nonproliferation and Arms Control Center, quoted in The Italian Letter, April 2007.

 

And now to review what the experts said about the likely duration of the war:

 ”It is not knowable if force will be used, but if it is to be used, it is not knowable how long that conflict would last. It could last, you know, six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.” -Donald Rumsfeld, February 7, 2003

 

“This conflict is…going to be relatively short.” -John McCain, March 23, 2003

 

“The next six to seven months are critical.” -Hillary Rodham Clinton, December 1, 2003

 

“The important thing is to realize we are about to enter into a very critical six months.” -Tony Blair, January 4, 2004

 

“It might be over in a week, it might be over in a month, it might be over in six months. But what’s the rush? Can we let this play out, please?” -Thomas Friedman, New York Times Columnist, June 3, 2004

 

“The next few months will be critical.” -Senator Richard G. Lugar, July 22, 2004

 

“I think the next nine months are critical.” -Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., June 29, 2005

 

“I think we’re in the end game now…” -Thomas Friedman, September 25, 2005

 

“The developments over the next several months will be critical…” -General David Petraeus, October 5, 2005

 

“We will probably see significant progress in the next six months to a year.” -John McCain, December 4, 2005

 

“I think that we’re going to know after six to nine months whether this project has any chance of succeeding.” -Thomas Friedman, January 23, 2006

 

“By the end of this year, we will begin to draw down significant numbers of American troops.” -Joe Lieberman, July 7, 2006

 

“We’ve got to turn the corner on this thing, and we’ve got to do it, I would say, in the next six months.” -John Thune, Senator, December 17, 2006

 

“At six months we’ll know and then we have to do something dramatic.” -Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State, January 12, 2007

 

“Give it six more months or so, maybe nine more months.” -Michael O’ Hanlon, Brookings Institution’s Senior Fellow of Foreign Policy Studies, August 5, 2007

 

“Play this out for the next six months.” -William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard and Fox News Contributor, August 13, 2007

 

“We’re kicking ass.” -George W. Bush, September 6, 2007

 

“The next six months are going to be critical.” -John McCain, September 12, 2007

 

“I’m afraid we’ve run out of six months.” -Thomas Friedman, September 24, 2007