Five years ago today, President Bush addressed our nation and the world from the USS Abraham Lincoln, only forty-two days after he ordered the invasion of Iraq. He declared “Mission Accomplished.” 1,827 days later, the U.S. occupation of Iraq continues, and our “mission” remains undefined and open-ended.

President Bush went to war on a flawed rational without a well-defined strategy or clear-cut and achievable goals. I was skeptical about giving the President authorization to go to war in 2003, but I gave this President the benefit of the doubt. That decision was a mistake.

In Vietnam, we never had a strategy to win. In Iraq, we have never had a strategy.

What this Administration does not understand is that there is a limitation to military power. We learned throughout the last century that political, economic and diplomatic challenges are equally, if not more, important to achieving stability on the ground. And as we’ve learned over the past five years, we must ultimately win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people.

We must begin a redeployment from Iraq, and we must refocus our attention to the threats down the road. The longer our military remains in Iraq, policing their streets, providing weapons, training and funds to whoever our alliances are for the moment, the longer and bloodier their war will be. If security and stability is our new “mission accomplished,” then it will never happen under a continued U.S. occupation or the continued propping up of a paralyzed Iraqi government.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 1st, 2008 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Politics, Foreign Policy, Homeland Security .