How the NY Times Covered "Mission Accomplished"

[BurtWorm]

A nauseating retrospective assembled by Editor & Publisher:

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003578624

Back in the Days of 'Mission Accomplished': How One Paper Covered Bush Declaration Four Years Ago
President Bush


By Greg Mitchell

Published: May 01, 2007 10:25 AM ET

NEW YORK Today marks the fourth anniversary of President Bush’s jet landing on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln and his speech declaring major fighting in Iraq over, all in front of a giant “Mission Accomplished” banner.

At the time, it was heralded by much of the mainstream media as a fitting moment of triumph. "He won the war," boomed MSNBC's Chris Matthews. "He was an effective commander. Everybody recognizes that, I believe, except a few critics."

Since then, it has become -- during four more years of death and war -- a symbol of American hubris and setbacks in Iraq. Today it is often lampooned as a tragic “photo op.” Rock singer Neil Young, in a song referencing the event, sings, "History is a cruel judge of overconfidence."

When Bush spoke, the U.S. had 150,000 troops in Iraq; the number now stands at 160,000 or more. American casualties at the time were 139 killed and 542 wounded. A year ago they stood at 2,400 killed and now it's 3,350 dead.

With that in mind, here are excerpts revealing how one newspaper, The New York Times, covered the event and aftermath four years ago. They include this nugget: "The Bush administration is planning to withdraw most United States combat forces from Iraq over the next several months and wants to shrink the American military presence to less than two divisions by the fall, senior allied officials said today."
*

By Elisabeth Bumiller

WASHINGTON, May 1 -- 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….

''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….
*

From published transcript of President Bush's speech on aircraft carrier, May 1:

"The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We have removed an ally of Al Qaeda, and cut off a source of terrorist funding.

"And this much is certain: No terrorist network will gain weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime, because that regime is no more.

"In these 19 months that changed the world, our actions have been focused, and deliberate, and proportionate to the offense. We have not forgotten the victims of September 11th -- the last phone calls, the cold murder of children, the searches in the rubble. With those attacks, the terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States. And war is what they got."

*
By Judith Miller

BAGHDAD, May 1 -- Ahmad Chalabi, an Iraqi opposition leader favored by the Pentagon, says he has raised with President Bush's envoy to Iraq his concern that the United States appears ready to admit senior officials from Saddam Hussein's Baath Party in a transitional government here.

The talks came amid reports of tension between Mr. Chalabi and the American military here. When Mr. Chalabi tried earlier this week to enter a political meeting organized by American officials, ''it took an hour to find the right door,'' his press secretary, Zaab Sethna said. ...

However, it appears that officials in Washington have not resolved what position, if any, Mr. Chalabi should occupy. Mr. Chalabi has strong support from Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz and from the office of Vice President Dick Cheney. However, the State Department and other American officials have reservations.

<More at the link>

[The_Casual_Observer]

1. "less than two divisions by the fall"

Right.

[underpants]

2. Stoooopid liberal media

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=796274

[BurtWorm]

5. That, too, is a sickening anthology.

:puke:

[depakid]

3. Goes to show how absolutely pathetic "journalism" has become

in the so called "mainstream" media.

There's really no other word for it. It's just pathetic.

[rodeodance]

4. By Judith Miller (gawd---thought we had seen the last of that name)!!

[BurtWorm]

6. Letter to the Editor, May 3

Re: ''Bush Declares 'One Victory in a War on Terror' '' (front page, May 2):

Some unanswered questions remain: Where are the weapons of mass destruction? What evidence makes Iraq ''an ally of Al Qaeda''? Where is Saddam Hussein? Where is Osama bin Laden? Who is next?

Martin Deppe
Chicago

*
By Douglas Jehl

WASHINGTON, May 3

The structure of the American administration of postwar Iraq remained unresolved today, as Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld issued a strong endorsement of Jay Garner, the retired lieutenant general whose job seemed about to be eclipsed by a former State Department official, L. Paul Bremer.

There was no announcement from the White House today about a plan to install Mr. Bremer, a former counterterrorism director for the State Department during the Reagan administration, as the country's day-to-day overseer. Some administration officials said issues involving the extent of Mr. Bremer's planned authority were still being debated.

Asked at a news conference in London today to explain Mr. Bremer's planned role, Mr. Rumsfeld said, ''I could, but I won't.''

*
By David E. Sanger

WASHINGTON, May 4 -- With his administration under growing international pressure to find evidence that Saddam Hussein possessed banned weapons, President Bush told reporters today that ''we'll find them,'' but cautioned that it would take some time because, he said, Mr. Hussein spent so many years hiding his stockpiles.
Mr. Bush's comments came after his senior aides, in interviews in recent days, had begun to back away from their prewar claims that Mr. Hussein had an arsenal that was loaded and ready to fire.

They now contend that he developed what they call a ''just in time'' production strategy for his weapons, hiding chemical precursors that could be quickly loaded into empty artillery shells or short-range missiles.
*

[mdmc]

7. It is STUPID to think we can be out in a couple months or years

I opposed this war because I knew that a stable, pro-west, unified, democratic Iraq was about 50 hard years away. I knew that it would take hard work and sacrifice to accomplish this mission.

Anyone that claims we can leave by 2009 is being silly. We cant. We are in for a penny, in for a pound.

That is why we should have never gone in. We can't get out without admitting defeat.

Hawkary Clinton will not admit defeat and withdraw in 2009. She will want to show that Bush is an idiot and that she can correct his awful mistake. More power to her.

[BurtWorm]

8. You're so right about knowing what going to war meant.

This is something the right and pro-war liberals do not and will not ever get: the anti-war left understood precisely (as the anti-regime change right in 1991 understood) that Iraq was a money and blood pit that was going to drain the US of both resources and years of peace. And that is precisely why the left tried so hard to resist, and why we still have problems forgiving or forgetting anyone on either side who enabled this war.

[mdmc]

9. thank you kindly for your reply

I post this over and over... sometimes PM it to folks... no one responds...

All solutions are ugly in regards to Iraq. One thing is clear - LETS NOT DO THIS AGAIN!

Peace and low stress! God Bless :toast: