Politics

Rep. George Miller Blasts New White House ?Mission Accomplished? Claim

By Jesse Lee

From Rep. George Miller’s (CA-07) office:

REP. MILLER: NEW WHITE HOUSE ?MISSION ACCOMPLISHED? CLAIM IS REPREHENSIBLE

WASHINGTON, D.C. — May 1, 2008 — U.S. Rep. George Miller (D-CA), chairman of the House Democratic Policy Committee, issued the following statement today in response to White House Press Secretary Dana Perino?s comment yesterday that the ?Mission Accomplished? banner hung from the USS Abraham Lincoln in 2003 did not really mean that the Iraq war ?mission? had been accomplished.

?This latest White House comment is reprehensible and should be repudiated. Yet again, the Bush Administration, faced with its own failures in Iraq, is trying to rewrite history rather than write a new policy to end the war and bring our troops home in a timely and responsible manner.

?The assertion yesterday by the White House that the ?Mission Accomplished? banner was meant simply to describe the mission of the USS Abraham Lincoln and its sailors in 2003 is clearly not believable and should be publicly repudiated by the President. The unjustified and misleading declaration of ?Mission Accomplished? by the President was the entire basis for his speech five years ago today, and it is a deep insult to all Americans and our servicemen and servicewomen that the White House is once again deliberately distorting the truth.

?The White House knowingly hung the ?Mission Accomplished? banner in a public relations effort to convince the world that military operations in Iraq had been completed quickly just as White House and Pentagon officials had repeatedly said would happen before the war began. Well, we all know what happened after that, because so far over 4,000 military personnel have lost their lives in Iraq and nearly 30,000 have been wounded.

?The President?s reckless and shortsighted decision to send America into an unjustified war in Iraq is one of the most costly and devastating foreign policy decision ever made by an American president. What the White House owes Americans is a new policy in Iraq that will bring our troops home, not a new version of history that only deceives Americans further, just as the Administration knowingly deceived Americans and the Congress in the buildup to this tragic war.?

Full post as published by The Gavel on May 01, 2008 (boomark / email).