“On May 1 [2003], the former Texas Air National Guard jet pilot [President Bush] donned a flight suit and landed on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln…In an address to the nation from the flight deck, he proclaimed, ‘Major combat operations in Iraq have ended…We have difficult work to do in Iraq.’…As Bush spoke a large banner hung in the background: ‘MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.’…’The tyrant has fallen and Iraq is free.’ …It was a ‘noble cause’ and ‘a great moral advance’ that he linked to Normandy and Iwo Jima, Franklin Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms, the Truman Doctrine, Reagan’s challenge to the evil empire and his own war against terror that began on 9/11…’We have seen the turning of the tide.’ ”
– Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack, Page 412