ABOARD USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN (REUTERS) — From the deck of a U.S. aircraft carrier off the California coast Thursday, President Bush declared major combat in Iraq to be over and called the six-week war “one victory” in the campaign against terror.
After making a dramatic cable-assisted landing on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, steaming home with its crew of more than 5,000 from the longest deployment in three decades, Bush said the United States and its allies had prevailed in Iraq.
“Major combat operations in Iraq have ended,” Bush said in a televised address from the carrier. “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 cautioned Americans that the United States was not yet ready to leave Iraq.
“We have difficult work to do. … The transition from dictatorship to democracy will take time, but it is worth every effort. Our coalition will stay until our work is done,” he said.
Washington attacked Iraq March 20, alleging it held weapons of mass destruction.
Bush also has sought to tie the deposed government of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to the al Qaeda organization blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States despite the lack of definitive proof.
“The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror,” he said. “We have removed an ally of al Qaeda and cut off a source of terrorist funding, and this much is certain — no terrorist network will gain weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime because the Iraqi regime is no more.”
Bush called the period since Sept. 11 “the 19 months that changed the world” and said the campaign against terror had not ended with the toppling of Saddam in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan.
“With those attacks, the terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States and war is what they got,” he said. “The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on Sept. 11, 2001, and still goes on.”
U.S. still in Afghanistan
On a second U.S. war front, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in Kabul Thursday that most of Afghanistan was now secure and that U.S.-led forces had moved from major combat operations to a period of stabilization and reconstruction.
More than 7,000 U.S. troops — part of an international force of more than 12,000 — remain in Afghanistan 18 months after a U.S.-led bombing campaign helped drive the fundamentalist Taliban from power. The Taliban had been sheltering Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network, blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks that killed more than 3,000 people.
Bush’s arrival on the aircraft carrier could provide the White House with some powerful ammunition when the president seeks re-election in 2004.
In San Diego, he exchanged his Air Force One jumbo jet for a small plane dubbed Navy 1 for a short hop that ended in a cable-assisted landing on the Lincoln’s deck.
Wearing a flight suit and sitting beside the pilot in the four-seat S-3B, called a “Viking,” Bush experienced the stomach-churning jolt of an arrested landing when the plane’s tail hook caught a cable stretched across the deck.
“Yes, I flew it,” Bush, a former pilot in the Texas Air National Guard, told reporters. “Of course I liked it.”
Next step: reconstruction
In his speech, Bush came close to declaring victory, but officials said his address was not meant to be a formal end to hostilities. Under international law, that would trigger the release of Iraqi prisoners of war and bar U.S. forces from trying to kill Saddam if he is still alive.
But it sets the stage for the U.S.-led operations in Iraq to focus on reconstruction. Among the key objectives yet to be achieved, Bush listed “finding leaders of the old regime who will be held to account,” the search for “hidden chemical and biological weapons” and rebuilding Iraq.
From the Lincoln, military personnel launched 16,500 sorties against Iraq as well as Afghanistan. Planes flying from the carrier dropped 1.2 million pounds of ordnance on Iraq.
Bush planned to spend the night on board in the stateroom used by the captain while the carrier is in port. By the time he departs Friday morning, he will be within Marine One helicopter range of shore.
