By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Thursday, May 1, 2008 1:06 PM

Much has happened in the five years since President Bush flew aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier in "Top Gun" style, stood under a banner proclaiming "Mission Accomplished" and proudly declared: "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended."

Five years ago, 139 American troops had died in Iraq. Now that number is 4,064. Five years ago, 542 American troops had been wounded in Iraq. Now that number is 29,395.

Five years ago, the national debt was $6.5 trillion. Now it's $9.3 trillion. Five years ago, your average gallon of gas cost $1.44. Now it costs $3.57. Five years ago, Bush's job-approval rating was at 70 percent. Now it's at 28.

Five years ago, Bush's appearance on the carrier was widely hailed as a brilliant PR move, imbuing the president with the aura of a conquering hero. Now, it's possibly the single most potent image of Bush's hubris.

Richard Sisk and James Gordon Meek write in the New York Daily News: "Five years after President Bush's 'Mission Accomplished' speech about Iraq, America's twin wars are looking more like 'Mission: Impossible.'

"On May 1, 2003, Bush flew on a Navy jet to the carrier Lincoln, where he announced 'major combat operations in Iraq have ended' and the U.S. had 'prevailed.'

"Today, that same ship is sailing back to the Persian Gulf and 4,370 coalition troops and thousands more Iraqis are dead.

"The U.S. is no closer to Bush's pledge that 'we will leave.'"

And as Sisk and Meek point out, it wasn't just victory in Iraq that Bush was celebrating prematurely: "In his Lincoln speech, the President also boasted: 'In the battle of Afghanistan, we destroyed the Taliban, many terrorists, and the camps where they trained.'

"Yet in 2007, a record 232 coalition troops died in that country, where the Taliban insurgency has expanded to every corner and Al Qaeda has 'reconstituted some of its pre-9/11 operational capabilities,' a State Department report grimly stated Wednesday."

AFP reports on what it calls the White House's "annual act of political contrition, mixed with defiance. . . .

"The 'Mission Accomplished' banner hanging behind Bush on the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier has become a powerful symbol to [Bush's] critics of how badly he underestimated the difficulties ahead in Iraq. . . .

"The White House's explanation for the banner repeatedly changed as the insurgency in Iraq revved up, though aides have steadfastly pointed out that Bush never said 'mission accomplished' in his speech. . . .

"But even that has drawn pointed questions, with former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld saying he had fought to have the White House remove the phrase from the remarks. The White House denies Rumsfeld's account. . . .

"[O]ne week later, on June 5, 2003, Bush told US troops at Camp As Sayliyah in Qatar: 'America sent you on a mission to remove a grave threat and to liberate an oppressed people, and that mission has been accomplished.'. . .

"And the official answer to 'who put up the banner' has changed -- as the death toll rose, the White House and Bush himself said the sailors had put it up on their own, even though aides had initially boasted of their stagecraft.

"Then Bush aides admitted that the White House designed and built it, but insisted they did so at the sailors' request, and that it celebrated the ship and its crew -- not victory in Iraq."

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino chose an unfortunate turn of phrase when asked yesterday about the anniversary -- saying the White House has "paid a price for not being more specific on that banner." But the banner's wording reflected Bush's central message that day. And when it comes to who's "paid the price" for his tragic miscalculation, well, the White House isn't at the top of my list.

"President Bush is well aware that the banner should have been much more specific and said 'mission accomplished for these sailors who are on this ship on their mission.'" Perino said. "And I recognize that the media is going to play this up again tomorrow, as they do every single year."

Paul Reynolds writes for BBC News: "The phrase 'mission accomplished' has lost that distinctive military ring of finality that it once had. It has become an irony."

Greg Mitchell writes for Editor and Publisher about the rapturous response from the media at the time: "Chris Matthews on MSNBC called Bush a 'hero' and boomed, 'He won the war. He was an effective commander. Everybody recognizes that, I believe, except a few critics.' PBS's Gwen Ifill said Bush was 'part Tom Cruise, part Ronald Reagan.' On NBC, Brian Williams gushed, 'The pictures were beautiful. It was quite something to see the first-ever American president on a -- on a carrier landing. This must be very meaningful to the United States military.'"

Matthew Hay Brown blogs for Tribune: "Antiwar activists aren't about to let the anniversary pass unremarked. This morning, several groups are planning to unveil a 50-foot replica of that red, white and blue banner in front of the White House.

"'It is amazing that five years after saying Mission Accomplished, we now don't even know what our mission is in Iraq, or how to accomplish it,' said Iraq War veteran Jon Soltz, chairman of VoteVets.org. 'There are still no metrics, there is no diplomatic surge, there is no political strategy to deal with Muqtada al-Sadr, and no road to home for our troops.'"