Happy anniversary!
Poll: Vast majority believes Iraq mission not accomplished
U.S. marks third anniversary since 'Mission Accomplished' speech
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Three years after President Bush declared major combat over in Iraq, Americans have strong doubts that the United States will fulfill the promise of his "Mission Accomplished" backdrop, a poll released Monday found.
The CNN poll, conducted April 21-23 by Opinion Research Corporation, found that only 9 percent thought the U.S. mission in Iraq had been accomplished, while another 40 percent believed it would be complete someday.
Another 44 percent said the United States would never accomplish its goals in Iraq, where American troops are still battling insurgents three years after the invasion that toppled former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
The poll had a sampling error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.
Bush's May 1, 2003, victory speech aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln was a carefully managed piece of political theater, from his flight suit-clad arrival aboard an S-3 Viking antisubmarine jet to the "Mission Accomplished" banner that hung from the carrier's bridge.
"My fellow Americans, major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed, and now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country," Bush said.
Bush had argued the invasion was necessary because Iraq had been concealing chemical and biological weapons, long-range missiles and a nuclear weapons program from U.N. inspectors and could have provided those weapons to terrorists.
"The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We have removed an ally of al Qaeda and cut off a source of terrorist funding," Bush said. "And this much is certain: No terrorist network will gain weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime, because the regime is no more."
U.S. inspectors later concluded that Iraq had dismantled its weapons programs while under U.N. sanctions that followed the 1991 Persian Gulf War, though Iraqi scientists had tried to conceal some weapons-related research from the United Nations.
Public support for the war has dropped considerably in the past year, with 55 percent telling pollsters in the same survey that they believed the United States made a mistake by invading Iraq. That discontent has contributed to a slump in Bush's own approval rating, which dropped to 32 percent in the CNN poll.
When Bush delivered the speech aboard the Lincoln, 139 U.S. troops had been killed in Iraq. On its third anniversary, the U.S. death toll is nearly 2,400.
Five months after his speech, with U.S. casualties in Iraq growing and the insurgency against American forces building strength, Bush said the "Mission Accomplished" sign had been put up by the ship's crew -- but the White House later conceded that it produced and paid for the banner as part of the president's visit.
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