When President Bush declared "the end of major combat operations" in Iraq did he imply the war was over? What did he mean by that speech?
What is the importance of this oft-mentioned milestone?

I think so. He seemed to expect everyone to accept America as occupiers, with just a few ba'ath party member to round up. I don't think he expected such a negative response (although the majority of Iraqis are glad to see Saddam gone).


Not very much at all really - he might as well have declared victory from the start. The real milestone will come when the Iraqis have a working police force and the troops can leave. Then the work can start on building a government and looking for those elusive WMDs!

I guess you can speculate here and there what he meant, but the simple fact is major combat operations being over does not mean the war was over. In fact, he was perfectly right. The mission at the time was to overthrow the Baath regime, and that mission was accomplished. Major combat operations were over. that does not mean the war is over.

I don't think I could have said it any better. I think the hype over this speech as the media mile-marker for this war is almost totally artificial. It's not news, it just sells...

Does this imply that major operations were over and bluer skies were ahead? WELL YEEEEESSS!

Does this phrase say, "The war is entirely over and no problems will ever arise over Iraq and there will never be another American life lost." ???
NOPE

But the media is not the only agency involved in spinning things. And The Bush administration greatly underestimated the problems that we would face after we overthrew the Ba'ath Party. So this is an important date because it marks the period of this conflict that started our Moses-esque journey into the desert.

If you want an opinion on the military use of the term, I believe he was referring to the end of traditional combat operations involving organized units. Recall that U.S. Divisions (3rd ID, 3rd ACR, 1st MEF) advancing towards Baghdad eventually ran into Iraqi Regular Army and Republican Guard Divisions (Medina, Hammurabi, Adnan, etc) that resisted, and force-on-force combat took place between organized units (platoons, companies, battalions, etc). When that ended, major combat operations ended in terms of military parlance.

Of course, the war did not end, it simply shifted to something more like guerilla operations (individuals and small cells engaging in hit-and-run and stand off tactics, rarely showing up in anything larger than squad-sized forces).

What was the meaning of the big 'Mission Accomplished' banner in the backround?

Remember all that stuff about US policy towards Iraq being "regime change"?

OK...Let me ask this...Was it, politically, a good idea for Bush to do that aircraft landing to announce the end of major combat in your opinion? Was the accomplishment equal to the fanfare?

The landing on an aircraft to do the announcement is another thread all together, which there already is a thread for that debate.


The mission was to kick out the Baath Party regime. That was done. Mission accomplished.

Major combat is when you are fighting an organized army fighting for a town or city. That is all done.

What I'm asking is if the President made a mistake by making such a big deal over the end of major combat operations? He was obviously celebrating something and indicating to America that combat missions and thereby deaths of our soldiers would now begin to slack off. That's what a reasonable person could infer when one moves from the combat stage to the reconstruction/occupation stage anyway.

Wouldn't he have been better off announcing it in one of his weekly radio addresses rather than how he did it?

There have been many special military ops since then that were meant to seek and destroy the enemy such as Operation Desert Scorpion for instance. I don't believe major combat operations are over...if anything it just shifted to urban warfare and guerilla tactics. So, why get our hopes up the way he did?

Nice revisionism, but the overthrow of the Ba'ath Party was never stated as "the mission" of the Iraqi campaign. Unsurprisingly, it's very difficult to even find a clear statement of "the mission" from an American source.

The Heritage Foundation, which might as well be the the White House Press Office, though, lists eight military objectives. Two of the eight have been achieved: number one, End the Regime of Saddam Hussein, and number six, Secure Iraq’s Oil Fields. The others are all in progress. Number two, Eliminate Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction was either accomplished before we initiated hostilities or may never be accomplished. You can't eliminate what you can't find.

Our chief partner-in-crime, the United Kingdom, is a bit more forthcoming. They list nine objectives, with nineteen sub-objectives. The first is "to rid Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction and their associated programmes and means of delivery". Accomplished? The second is "to enforce Iraq's compliance with its disarmament obligations". Accomplished? The third - now we're getting somewhere - was "to enforce Iraqi compliance [by ensuring] that the current Iraqi regime be removed from power". The other objectives of their mission are in progress - and may or may not one day be accomplished.

Are our major combat operations over? Let's see: How many troops have we withdrawn from Iraq? How much artillery? How much have our casualties dropped? <drums fingers while awaiting a response> Okay... President Bush's declaration of "the end of major combat operations" was a PR exercise - pure, simple, and transparent. You're right: the war is far from over.

Splitting hairs a bit here. Supporters of war against Iraq in government (going back to the Clinton administration) have always said that "regime change" was needed to disarm Iraq. Of course, disarmament was the stated ultimate goal but the initial mission misson of the military in Iraq was to remove the regime that made that impossible. Examples:


Clinton announces Iraq strikes: Full text
The beginning of the official regime change policy...

'Only regime change will avert the threat'
I will post others if you think it nescessary to prove my point. That deals with the "Mission Accomplished" banner. As for Major combat operations, may I ask what is wrong with this explanation?


No one is disputing that (most speeches are ), but it has been mentioned repeatedly on this site, that Bush implied the war was over by this speech. That is simply not the case.

We are in entire agreement, turnea - that's why I mentioned the lack of withdrawal and the escalating casualties.

As to the whole question of "regime change", that has clearly been the goal of our past few administrations - but we have never had a justifiable reason for invading a sovereign nation and ousting their leader. The Iraqi campaign is no exception. The fact that the not-so-hidden agenda was accomplished has nothing to do with the stated mission.

I was disputing the claim that our apparent mission had been accomplished. I was not trying to argue, by any means, that "the war is over".

To clearly answer your opening question - "What is the importance of this oft-mentioned milestone?" - none. It was a "milestone" of no import whatsoever.

I think he did. While he was correct in stating that major combat operations had ended, to many Americans that no doubt would sound like "war is over." I think this was yet another case of the president not choosing his words carefully. I do think the media is making more out of it than it is, but that is to be expected. The president should know better.

President Bush was right in a sense.

The war went from being a state vs. state war to being a guerrilla war.

Of course, as it turns out, the Iraqi's are more effective in a guerrilla war than they where in a traditional war.

During the "state vs. state" portion of the war, the American military was on the offensive and the Iraqi military was on the defensive, which is the way the US wanted it. Iraqi assets where fixed targets, American assets where mobile.

Now with the current guerrilla war, the American military is defending and the Iraqi military has the luxery of striking where and when it wants. There are no more Iraqi fixed targets, just American fixed assets.

Technically, the U.S. troops are sometimes on the offensive in the current atmosphere of this Iraq situation. When they raid houses, farmes, whatever, they are still fighting an enemy. They are fighting to clean up whoever is left and whoever has come in as a terrorist group. Also, they are still fighting when they get into a little shootout

Instead of cleaning up remnants they are creating new enemies. Now there are so many our troops will never be able to 'clean them up' and are now on the defensive.

The Iraqi Guerrillas don't have military bases the Americans can attack, it wouldn't make sense for them to do anything to limit their mobility, thats the principle advantage of guerrrillas. The American Army on the other hand, has bases. It represents what is by comparison a sitting target, so even though the Iraqi Guerrillas are no more sophisticated militarily than they where when they where fighting before the United States took the major cities, they now have a certain tactical advantage.

All that means is conventional warfare is ended (tanks, airplanes, and television cameras in the back of APCs). The work of special operations is going to intensify (SF, SEALS, Recon, ect.). No more dropping bombs on cities, but you will hear of small raids.

President Bush declared "the end of combat operations" in Iraq. It's funny how right George Orwell was with "Nineteen Eighty-Four". The "Ministry of Truth" is well in full existance. I remember watching Bush on tv, when said it and then over night it changed.