Mission Accomplished speech

On May 1, 2003, United States president George W. Bush gave a televised speech on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln. Bush, who had launched the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq six weeks earlier, mounted a podium in front of a White House-produced banner that read "Mission Accomplished". Reading from a prepared text, he said, "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed ... because the regime [the Iraqi dictatorship of Saddam Hussein] is no more."^[1] Although Bush went on to say that "Our mission continues" and "We have difficult work to do in Iraq",^[1] his words implied that the Iraq War was over and America had won.^[2]

Bush's assertions—and the sign itself—became controversial as the Iraqi insurgency gained pace and developed into a full-on sectarian war. The vast majority of casualties, U.S. and Iraqi, military and civilian, occurred after the speech.^[3] U.S. troops fought in Iraq for eight more years before eventually withdrawing. In modern cultural relevance, the phrase "Mission Accomplished" is frequently used to refer to the perils of declaring victory too early in crises.^[4]