Quote:
Originally Posted by Happy Monkey
No it wasn't.
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The president told reporters the sign was put up by the Navy, not the White House.
"I know it was attributed somehow to some ingenious advance man from my staff -- they weren't that ingenious, by the way," the president said Tuesday.
Bush offered the explanation after being asked whether his speech declaring an end to major combat in Iraq under the "Mission Accomplished" banner was premature, given that U.S. casualties in Iraq since then have surpassed those before it.
During the speech in May, Bush said, "The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September 11, 2001, and still goes on."
White House spokesman Scott McClellan told CNN that in preparing for the speech, Navy officials on the carrier told Bush aides they wanted a "Mission Accomplished" banner, and the White House agreed to create it.
"We took care of the production of it," McClellan said. "We have people to do those things. But the Navy actually put it up."
Cmdr. Conrad Chun, a Navy spokesman, defended the president's assertion.
"The banner was a Navy idea, the ship's idea," Chun said.
"The banner signified the successful completion of the ship's deployment," he said, noting the Abraham Lincoln was deployed 290 days, longer than any other nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in history.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/....accomplished/