“On May 1, 2003, aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, President Bush announced that ‘major combat operations’ in Iraq had ended. The defeat of Saddam Hussein, he told the American people, was ‘a crucial advance in the campaign against terror.’ For the umpteenth time Bush once again bracketed Saddam and 9/11: ‘The battle of Iraq is […]
Category: quotes
5/1/2003
Former President George W. Bush recalled his May 1, 2003, speech on the USS Abraham Lincoln, announcing the end of major combat operations in Iraq: “I hadn’t noticed the large banner my staff had placed on the bridge of the ship, positioned for TV. It read ‘Mission Accomplished.’ It was intended as a tribute to the […]
5/1/2003
On May 1, 2003, “Centcom [Central Command] announced that major combat operations were officially over [in Iraq], and President Bush dressed up in a flight suit to land on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln. The White House had arranged for the ship to sport a banner with the words ‘Mission Accomplished’ over the flight deck. […]
4/30/2003
Secretary of Defense Donald “Rumsfeld flew to Iraq on April 30 [2003]. …Rumsfeld videotaped an optimistic message to be broadcast to the Iraqis from the military’s Commando Solo psychological operations aircraft: ‘Let me be clear: Iraq belongs to you. We do not want to own or run it,’ Rumsfeld said. ‘…We will stay as long […]
4/30/2003
“On April 30, 2003, as the smoke of burning buildings clouded the sky above Baghdad, the secretary of defense [Donald Rumsfeld] told those Iraqis fortunate enough to have electricity to power their TVs: ‘Coalition forces are working in close partnership with Iraqi citizens to restore order and basic services. Each day that goes by, conditions […]
4/30/2003
When asked why this Middle East peace initiative would be successful when all others had failed, President George W. Bush responded: “Well, just because history has proven to be unsuccessful doesn’t mean that we’re not going to try, for starters. I’m an optimist. I believe now that we have a interlocutor from the Palestinian Authority that has […]
4/29/2003
“Tawfig bin-Atash, a leader in the [USS] Cole bombing plot, was seized in April [29] 2003.” – Peter Lance, 1000 Years For Revenge, Page 436 […]
4/28/2003
“An April 28 [2003] Newsweek cover story called ‘Saddam’s Secret Files’ revealed the contents of a small treasure trove of intelligence seized from the Iraqi Intelligence Service, but none of it contained any significant information about al Qaeda, or hidden locations of chemical or biological weapons.” – Peter Lance, 1000 Years For Revenge, Page 442 […]
4/28/2003
Journalist Abdel Bari Atwan wrote: “On 28 April 2003 my newspaper [Al-Quds al-Arabi] received a faxed letter from Saddam, then still in hiding, indicating that he knew the real war would be one of insurgency and would begin when the US believed the war was over. He urged the ordinary Iraqi people to rise up […]
4/28/2003
“When Iraqi citizens staged another anti-American demonstration near Baghdad just ten days later [April 28, 2003], US troops opened fire on them and killed at least thirteen, wounding seventy-five.” – Abdel Bari Atwan, The Secret History of al Qaeda, Page 200 […]