Mission? Accomplished?

Three years ago George W. Bush announced that the "mission" was accomplished in Iraq. More recently he has kind of admitted that it's not but that we must continue to honor the 2,400 Americans who have been killed. Well Charlie Reese asks the question that many are asking and many more should be asking, what is the mission?

Is it to overthrow Saddam Hussein? He's been overthrown and is awaiting execution by a kangaroo court we selected to do the hit.

Is it to allow the Iraqi people to hold elections? They've held three elections – one for an interim government, one for a Constitution, and one for a permanent government, which is now in place except for two Cabinet positions.

Oh, I forgot that when the president was selling this war, he said the mission was to disarm Saddam because he had all those awful weapons of mass destruction. Well, of course, they didn't exist, and now the president doesn't talk about them.

But if the purpose was to install an elected government, why are we still there? Why are we spending half a billion dollars to build the world's largest embassy, one that dwarfs Saddam's palaces and that ticks off the Iraqi people? Why, after three years and billions of our tax dollars, do the Iraqi people lack electricity, clean water and sewers? They had all those things under Saddam until we destroyed them with our bombs and missiles.

And if we want the Iraqi army to handle security, why are its soldiers still driving around in Toyotas? Where are their armored personnel carriers, their tanks, their light machine guns and light artillery? Surely there is a lot of that stuff left over. Why doesn't the president stop spreading heifer dust? We take an 18-year-old kid, give him 18 weeks of training and ship him off to combat. Is this administration saying it takes five years to train an Iraqi lad?

Mr Reese points out that the only real remaining mission is to:

.....wipe the egg off the president's face. The invasion of Iraq was unconstitutional. There was no declaration of war, just a namby-pamby, you-can-use-force-if-you-want-to resolution passed by those spineless mountebanks who inhabit Congress. It was illegal under international law, since Iraq had not attacked us or even threatened to attack us. Iraq was cooperating with the arms inspectors and telling the truth about the lack of weapons. That's why the U.N. Security Council refused to give the president the resolution he wanted as a cover for his war.

Most of all, though, it was flat stupid, as anybody who knows the Middle East could have told him. To use a favorite phrase of his father, when the prez ordered the invasion of Iraq, he stepped into deep doo-doo of the camel variety. I doubt if he knows how to get out of Iraq even if he wanted to, and I don't think he does. I think he intends to stay there indefinitely.

There were many reasons given for the invasion of Iraq, all of them lies. There were also many "real" reasons for invading Iraq, primarily revolving around oil and politics. The war has now become a political liability and it is obvious that if the oil does flow in Iraq again Cheney's buddies in the oil industry won't be a part of it. So what is the mission now? Saving face?