About a month after President George W. Bush stood on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln before a banner proclaiming, "Mission Accomplished," Fox News' Neil Cavuto asserted to Senator John McCain that, "many argue the conflict isn't over" in Iraq.  McCain  responded, "Well, then why was there a banner that said mission accomplished on the aircraft carrier?"

Five years later, that exchange has come to encapsulate John McCain's unbroken reign of error when it comes to Iraq.  From his predictions of a short war and claims U.S. troops would be greeted as liberators to his casual attitude towards casualties and his ongoing confusion over friend and foe in Iraq, the next would-be Republican president has sounded very much like the man he hopes to replace.

Here, then, is a look back on John McCain's words on the mission accomplished in Iraq:

One of these days, I certainly hope, George W. Bush will make his final Saturday Radio Broadcast.  I decided to speculate about what he will say.  If he gives the address I envision, the Democrats might forego a response.

I thought about this after getting another of those wingnut e-mails that want us to cut off all aid to all countries that did not join in our little "adventure" in Iraq.  You know the kind I mean, those e-mails that proclaim our "victory" based on the fact that Sadaam Hussein is no longer in power.

-- flip over for more --

For anyone born before 1970 or so, there are certain images that are come to mind whenever the name "Iran" is uttered: stern, bearded men in black robes, angry crowds, graphics depicting blindfolded American citizens with things like "Day 334" stamped over them, Ollie North bravely disgracing his uniform and perjuring himself, John McSame exploring the intersection of 1960s pop music and the idea of raining death from the skies.  In short, the past 30 years haven't exactly been a model of how nations ought to think of one another.

Join me, if you will, in the Cave of the Moonbat, where tonight we'll take a last look – a Parthian shot, if you will – at the recent history of Iran.  Maybe, just maybe, we'll get past some of the more extreme caricatures the Traditional Media has been foisting upon us – and perhaps be able to start formulating a de-Bushified foreign policy that relies less on blustering incompetence and more on genuine historical understanding.

Five years ago today the U.S. media and administration officials who plotted the invasion of Iraq celebrated the fall of Baghdad while expressing few fears about the future.  "We're all neo-cons now!"  crowed Chris Matthews on MSNBC.  Joe Scarborough, also on MSNBC, declared, "I'm waiting to hear the words, 'I was wrong' from some of the world's most elite journalists, politicians, and Hollywood types."   Vice President Cheney dismissed critics of the war as ''retired military officers embedded in T.V. studios.''  Donald Rumsfeld compared the end of Saddam Hussein's government to the fall of the Berlin Wall - a tragically premature judgement, as we would soon learn.

In all of this there was  a special emphasis on the toppling of that tall statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad, which happened on April 9.   It was, in most cases,  attributed solely to the Iraqis--with little or no mention of the crucial help provided by U.S. marines (as I note in my new book on Iraq and the media).  

Current Central Intelligence Agency Director General Michael Hayden appeared on Meet the Press with Tim Russert this morning, in his first Sunday morning interview since taking office.  He made a number of statements worth further examination.

He discussed the situation in Iraq, the situation in Afghanistan, interrogation techniques, and our intelligence on Saddam Hussein.

What we learned after the jump...

Given everything that's going on, you may need a comedic break, so consider the following, adapted from my new book.

In the days after Oprah Winfrey two years ago sliced and diced writer James Frey on her TV show for misleading the public with lies in his bestselling memoir, many liberal commentators expressed a single wish: to watch Oprah have the opportunity to do the same with President George W. Bush concerning the alleged lies that got the U.S. into Iraq (2,200 lost American lives ago). Eugene Robinson, The Washington Post columnist, observed, "If there were justice in the world, George W. Bush would have to give his State of the Union address from Oprah’s couch. . . . Bush should have to face the wrathful, Old Testament Oprah who subjected author James Frey to that awful public smiting the other day."

"After all, this is a guy who tried to kill my dad at one time." – George W. Bush at a political fund raiser – September 26, 2002.

For fifteen years we’ve heard about the supposed plot by Saddam Hussein to kill George "Poppy" Bush while he was on a state visit to Kuwait back in 1993. Apparently, if it was true, the Hussein government kept no record of it at all. Not one iota of evidence of any assassination plot regarding former President George H.W. Bush exists anywhere in the nearly 600,000 pages of Iraqi intelligence documents seized after the fall of Baghdad. Likewise, no evidence of the aforementioned plot -- that some say was part of George W. Bush’s decision-making process during the run up to the invasion in March 2003 -- was found in the poured-over thousands of hours of audio and videotapes of Hussein’s conversations with his ministers and top aides.

Consequently, there appears to be good reason for the absence of dialogue from the current Bush regime since the release of the study regarding the original claim by the Kuwaiti government. It never happened, although at the time, it was readily accepted by the Clinton administration as fact.

there was a tease on Blitzer, so I went on line and found this:

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON -- Federal prosecutors say Saddam Hussein's intelligence agency secretly financed a trip to Iraq for three U.S. lawmakers during the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion.

The story goes on to say that while the indictment does not mention the lawmakers

the dates correspond to a trip by Democratic Reps. Jim McDermott of Washington, David Bonior of Michigan and Mike Thompson of California. There was no indication the three lawmakers knew the trip was underwritten by Saddam.

I know nothing more, but thought people would want to know.  And this is my first ever use of "BREAKING"

I will be adding info below the fold as it becomes available

In October 2002, Barack Obama warned of the consequences of invading and occupying Iraq when there was still work to be done in Afghanistan. More than five years and 4,000 dead troops later, he has been proven right. Obama pointed out that not only would there be short-term damage, there would be grave long-term damage as well. And now, we are starting to see what kind of damage that we have done to Iraq.

There are now 1 million Iraqi refugees in Syria alone who can't find work.

"They call us the pillow drivers here," says Dr. Jassim Alwan who fled Baghdad after he was arrested by U.S. forces in 2003. "I was humiliated like an animal by those who call themselves soldiers of liberty, so I decided to flee to Syria."

He has no work now, he says. "All I do is stay up late at night thinking of myself and my family's dark future, and sleep all day like a drugged man. Most Iraqis do the same."

Over the past two days, the fawning American media has provided rave reviews of John McCain's visit to France.  While the New York Times lauded "McCain's soothing tones," Time gushed about "McCain's Paris romance" and the transformation of Franco-American relations made possible by his warm embrace of French President Nicolas Sarkozy.  But lost in these accounts is John McCain's vitriolic France-bashing in the run-up to the war in Iraq.  Back in 2003, John McCain stood shoulder to shoulder with the Paris-hating purveyors of "freedom fries" and "old Europe."

Hurrah! We've reached the final installment of my summary of the IDA Saddam & Terrorism report.  You can find Part 1 here..., Part 2 here... and Part 3 here..

So far, we've learned that while Saddam had many ties to terrorist organizations and definitely made trouble for his neighbors, evidence does not suggest that he was in ANY position to be a real threat to the United States.

I joked in Part 1 that I read the report, so you don't have to, but..

No, actually you should read this report.  You can find it here... on the right-hand side (big  pdf!)

I think you should read it because anything the current administration doesn't want you to easily access must be GOOD stuff. Read it and start asking questions...

What follows is a summary of "The Business of Terror" and the conclusions of the entire paper...

On this anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, I offer this, the 3rd installment of a summary of the IDA report on Saddam and terrorism.  Part 1 is here... and part 2 is here...

I joked in Part 1 that I read the report, so you don't have to, but..

No, actually you should read this report.  You can find it here... on the right-hand side(big pdf!)

I think you should read it because anything the current administration doesn't want you to easily access must be GOOD stuff. I mean, they canceled a press conference about the release of the report so as to avoid being asked questions about it. So read it-- get informed about what is in this report and perhaps more importantly, what is NOT in this report. Then ask questions... ask Congressmen what they think of the report...ask journalists to ask questions of administration officials...keep asking.

Yesterday, I posted a summary of the first part of the IDA's Saddam and Terrorism report that the administration was originally going to release with a little fanfare, but then pulled the press plug and slipped it out quietly.  You can find that summary here...  I joked that I read the report, so you don't have to, but..

No, actually you should read this report.  You can find it here... on the right-hand side(big pdf!)

I think you should read it because anything the current administration doesn't want you to easily access must be GOOD stuff. I mean, they canceled a press conference about the release of the report so as to avoid being asked questions about it. So read it-- get informed about what is in this report and perhaps more importantly, what is NOT in this report. Then ask questions... ask Congressmen what they think of the report...ask journalists to ask questions of administration officials...keep asking.

What follows is a summary of the second main part of the paper: State Relationships with Terrorist Groups.

Five years of the United States occupation of Iraq.

And, we now have the blood of a Chaldean Catholic archbishop on our already blood-grimed hands.

Just in time for the fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion, presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain made an unannounced visit to Iraq.  While McCain deemed the visit a "fact-finding" mission, his secret visit to Baghdad is just part of an extended photo opportunity in the Middle East and Europe designed to highlight his national security credentials.

Unfortunately for McCain, his excellent Baghdad adventure could well produce the opposite effect.  After all, this week's looming anniversary highlights that at almost every turn, John McCain has been disastrously wrong about Iraq.

If you've got the time and energy, you can cruise through the declassified version of Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents Volume 1 (Redacted), a pdf file now hosted on Daily Kos servers. The total, including appendices, runs to 70 pages. If you do delve into it, what you'll be looking at is the declassified portion of a document written in January 2007.

As one anonymous source told McClatchy on Monday, before the Cheney-Bush administration stepped in to make the entire five-volume report more difficult for citizens to see and evaluate, there are no surprises. As reported previously, the researchers looked at 600,000 captured Iraqi documents and found not one shred of evidence linking the dictator Saddam Hussein and the attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001.

In other words, they confirmed what the CIA said in February 2002, what the National Intelligence Estimate said in August 2002, what the 9/11 Commission said in July 2004, what the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Phase II report said in September 2006, and what various investigative journalists said before and after the invasion of Iraq by the Cheney-Bush gang.

Not that Saddam comes out in the report - any of those reports - as a good guy. But if you want a far better (highly readable) look at the man from the same Iraqi Perspectives Project that did the latest report, try A View of Operation Iraqi Freedom from Saddam's Senior Leadership. (Warning: 230-page pdf file.)

[Update: A fix on the first link is underway. Complicated because of pdf loading.]

As a matter of fact; you have had days, weeks and even months to ponder your decision and determine what to say and do about this crisis. You are well respected and a leader of your party, some people may even be influenced by your words and vote. Whether to put our young men and women in harm's way. (Not yours; of course, or probably any of your important backers I'm sure.) Thousands of ours and many, many times more of theirs will die. And this is what you say......

The rest; almost, of this analysis was done by Steve at Sizzling Gizzards, check him out for his full analysis at his excellent blog:
http://www.sizzlingizzards.blogspot.com/

From ABC News:
http://blogs.abcnews.com/...

The Bush Administration apparently does not want a U.S. military study that found no direct connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda to get any attention. This morning, the Pentagon cancelled plans to send out a press release announcing the report's release and will no longer make the report available online.
The report was to be posted on the Joint Forces Command website this afternoon, followed by a background briefing with the authors. No more. The report will be made available only to those who ask for it, and it will be sent via U.S. mail from Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Virginia.

It won't be emailed to reporters and it won't be posted online