'Mission accomplished' haunts a year later

WASHINGTON -- A year after declaring an end to major combat operations in Iraq, President Bush conceded Friday that U.S. troops have faced "some tough fighting" against insurgents there, but he insisted that, "We're making progress, you bet" toward stabilizing the war-torn nation.

Democrats used the anniversary of Bush's appearance aboard an aircraft carrier last May 1 -- when he appeared under a banner saying "Mission Accomplished" -- to highlight the heavy toll from a war that they consider ill-conceived.

"Much as we had hoped the end of major combat signaled the beginning of a more peaceful period of reconstruction, the president's assertion of 'mission accomplished' was tragically premature," said Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., in a statement.

Bush took note of the anniversary of his speech during a brief question-and-answer session in the White House Rose Garden, with visiting Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin at his side.

"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," the president 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."

The president dismissed the uprisings in Fallujah and elsewhere in Iraq as the work of small band of anti-democracy zealots and terrorists, saying: "We will deal with them, those few who are stopping the hopes of many."

In April alone, at least 130 American soldiers died in Iraq amid growing violence, more than the number killed during the six-week war that overthrew Saddam's regime.

When Bush landed on the USS Abraham Lincoln off the San Diego coast, it seemed as if the event was ready-made for a Bush re- election campaign commercial.

But in the intervening 12 months, hundreds of U.S. soldiers have been killed. Although Saddam was captured and is awaiting trial, no weapons of mass destruction have been found.

White House officials have said that it was the Lincoln's crew, homeward bound after a yearlong deployment, who suggested the "Mission Accomplished" banner, and that the White House had gone along. In mid-April, Karl Rove, the president's top political strategist, admitted in an interview with the Columbus Dispatch newspaper in Ohio: "I wish the banner was not up there."

In the Rose Garden Friday, Bush told reporters that American sacrifices "will not go in vain because there will be a free Iraq." He said that a democratic Iraq would be in the interest of regional and world peace.

The president also noted that in his address to the nation a year ago he had warned of the "still difficult work ahead."

To further highlight the May 1 anniversary, Democrats have called on an Army officer who had served in Iraq to deliver their response to the president's weekly Saturday radio address.

Democrats, including the presidential campaign of Sen. John F. Kerry, took note of the casualties in the past year. One fact sheet noted that there have been 596 U.S. deaths since May 1, 2003, compared with 117 between the start of the Iraq war and May 1.

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