...the president said, with Rice and Rumsfeld at his side. "It's a government that understands they've got serious challenges ahead of them." Talk of splitting Iraq into three provinces -- Sunni, Shia, Kurd -- with a central government in Baghdad.
Though Bush was emphasizing the positive, it was a decidedly less positive message than the one he offered from aboard an aircraft carrier, the USS Lincoln, on May 1, 2003. "The tyrant has fallen and Iraq is free," he said then, standing underneath a banner proclaiming: "Mission Accomplished." |