An Indelible Moment in A War and Presidency
By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 28, 2003; Page A01
President Bush waves as he emerges from behind
camouflage netting for Thanksgiving Day dinner in Iraq.
(Pool Photo Anja Niedringhaus)
Three images tell the story of George W. Bush's presidency.
The first, of Bush and bullhorn atop the rubble at New York's Ground Zero on Sept. 14, 2001, came to symbolize his transformation into a powerful wartime president. The second, of Bush in flight suit with "Mission Accomplished" banner aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003, became the symbol of Bush's unrealized optimism about the U.S. military's victory in Iraq.
Yesterday, Nov. 27, 2003, brought an equally vivid but more complex image of Bush. His stealthy landing in Baghdad on Thanksgiving Day portrayed a leader well aware of the chaotic and dangerous situation in Iraq but determined to assure the Iraqi people that the United States will not, as he has put it, "cut and run."
While the troops cheered the moment, it is too soon to know whether the image of Bush in his Army jacket yesterday will become a symbol of strong leadership or a symbol of unwarranted bravado.
Iraqis may be reassured that the United States will put down the insurgency and restore order in their country. Or they may take the image of Bush landing unannounced at night without lights and not venturing from a heavily fortified military installation as confirmation that the security situation in Iraq is dire indeed.
But one thing is certain. Bush's Thanksgiving Day surprise ties him, for better or worse, ever more tightly to the outcome of the Iraq struggle.
"It raises the stakes," said Rich Bond, a former head of the Republican Party. "When you're playing poker and somebody is coming at you, a great way to deter them is to raise the stakes. George Bush just placed his stature in an extraordinary way to reassert his commitment to Iraq."
There is nothing novel about presidential visits to war zones at holiday time. Bill Clinton went to Kosovo for Thanksgiving in 1999, Lyndon B. Johnson went to Vietnam for Christmas in 1967, and President-elect Dwight D. Eisenhower visited Korean battle fronts in 1952. Richard M. Nixon also traveled to Vietnam, in 1969.
It is also not unprecedented for a president to make unannounced trips in wartime under intense security. Franklin D. Roosevelt's trips to Yalta and other ports during World War II make that clear. And while people may debate the wisdom of sending Air Force One into an area known to have frequent antiaircraft fire, security experts said the secret defensive technologies on Air Force One put the plane at little risk compared with the DHL aircraft that was struck over Baghdad a few days ago.
In contrast to Bush's carrier landing, which they immediately branded a stunt, Bush's critics yesterday did not begrudge him the trip to Iraq, nor the necessary secrecy, nor even the disinformation the White House used to lead people to believe he would be at home on his ranch in Texas all day. Rather, they said the visit may come to reinforce their view that the administration has led the United States into a lonely occupation of Iraq without an obvious exit strategy.
Bush's entourage was fitted with ballistic vests, and the plane came in with neither running lights nor cabin lights, parking on a dark landing strip. "The message to the Iraqis is Bush doesn't think their country is secure," said Sidney Blumenthal, a former adviser to Clinton. "It underscores the insecurity, and it conveys insularity."
Chris Lehane, a strategist for retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark's presidential campaign, said Democrats would not fault Bush for visiting the troops.
"It's absolutely appropriate to be honoring our soldiers overseas in battle on a day like Thanksgiving," he said. "It's more important to honor them every day, which includes allowing us to appropriately honor the heroes who come back in caskets and giving our troops a strategy so they're not there next Thanksgiving."
Bush, in his brief words to the troops, had little of the braggadocio from his May 1 speech and much of the grim determination from his bullhorn speech.
There were no pithy slogans on banners behind him. "You're engaged in a difficult mission," he said, with a poor amplification quality that fit the improvised nature of the trip. "Those who attack our coalition forces and kill innocent Iraqis are testing our will."
But, he added to applause, "We did not charge hundreds of miles into the heart of Iraq, pay a bitter cost in casualties, defeat a brutal dictator and liberate 25 million people only to retreat before a band of thugs and assassins."
The message fit the mood of the weary soldiers. In the audience, Staff Sgt. Gerrie Stokes Holloman of Baltimore said she feels "depressed" being in Iraq but buoyed by Bush's visit: "For the most part, people are tired and want to go home. But the support and encouragement we get from our leadership builds a bond with our soldiers."
Retired Army Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, a commander during the 1991 Persian Gulf War who maintains extensive ties to the Army, predicted the visit would boost soldiers' morale. The visit "brought tears to my eyes," McCaffrey said. "This is the kind of thing that will have a major impact on their level of trust with their own commander in chief."
The visit's impact on U.S. public opinion and on the Iraqi public is not yet knowable. Though it will be to history to judge whether this third major image of Bush's presidency will become shorthand for a failed occupation or a successful war, both supporters and critics yesterday said it was appropriate to make a holiday visit to the soldiers he sent to battle -- and to bind further his political fortunes to the outcome of the mission in Iraq.
"The fact that it's on Thanksgiving is a little bit contrived, but I don't have any problem with it," said Michael O'Hanlon, a defense analyst at the Brookings Institution and a frequent critic of the president's Iraq policy. "It's politics the way it's supposed to be, in a sense."
Staff writer Vernon Loeb contributed to this report.
