* May 1, 2004: “Mission Accomplished” celebration at sea
* May 7, 2003: Vice President Cheney says Saddam is dead
* May 25, 2003: Capt. Wachter speaks at Crystal Cathedral
* May 27, 2003: Secret meeting at Langley to cover it up
In order to conceal the administration’s blunder, it was necessary to bring Saddam back from the dead by the use of one of his doubles. “Personally, I always doubted that Saddam Hussein, the ruler of one of the oldest nations in the world, would hide in a spider hole,” Fetzer said. “It didn’t add up. And when Vialls pointed out that the US refused to turn their prisoner over to Iraqi authorities, it became increasingly obvious that doing so would have given the game away. Karl Rove would have been unable to manipulate the American people using Saddam as his pawn were Saddam no longer alive.”
Others have taken a dim view of the politics of the USS Lincoln event. In his column, “Happy ‘Mission Accomplished’ Anniversary” (May 2, 2007), James Bovard wrote, “Yesterday was the fourth anniversary of one of the most dishonest propaganda speeches in modern American history.” Noting that 186,000 more Iraqis have died since that day, where the actual number may be closer to 600,000, he assails the tortured logic that has justified the war and the petty deception involved in the administration’s denial that it was even responsible for the banner itself. But anyone who knows the rest of the story should begin to appreciate, no matter how dimly, that this is the most corrupt administration in American history.
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