CNN released a poll today showing that 3 years after Bush announced “Mission Accomplished” in his victory speech on May 1, 2003, that the majority of American’s do not feel that the mission is Iraq has been accomplished. The speech was a strategically staged piece of political theater, aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln.

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 40 percent believed it would be complete someday.

An additional 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 CNN poll also showed that “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 approval rating, which dropped to 32 percent in the CNN poll.

Media Matters takes a look back at the at “the media’s fawning coverage of Bush’s premature declaration of victory in Iraq,” and ThinkProgress takes a look at ‘Mission Accomplished’ By The Numbers.”

Yesterday, former Secretary of State Colin Powell smacked Condi off message as she appeared on the Sunday talk shows. Powell sideswiped Condi by “revisiting the question of whether the U.S. had a large enough force to oust Saddam Hussein and then secure the peace.”

Today, adding insult to injury to the 3 year anniversary of “Mission NOT Accomplished,” Bush called the formation of a new Iraqi government “a turning point.”

Mr. Bush cautioned that “there’s going to be more tough days ahead,” but he said that “it’s important for the American people to know that we’ve got partners in this effort who are dedicated to a unified Iraq.”

In an Op-Ed article in the NY Times today written with Leslie H. Gelb, the former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, Senator Joe Biden argued that “Mr. Bush has spent three years in a futile effort to establish a strong central government in Baghdad.” Biden calls for a decentralized Iraq.

Biden’s statement takes me back to John Kerry’s OP/ED in the NY Times a in early April, where he called for “Two Deadlines and an Exit.” It’s time to act on Kerry’s proposal.

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