But stories that we would begin an offensive and news that a new division headquarters took command in the east last month gave me reason to have confidence that our surge plan would carry forward.
In April, we suffered 32 dead. I think it is safe to say that we are on the move, even if the offensive in the east hasn't been officially announced.
UPDATE: This article wonders if President Obama risked a "mission accomplished" moment with his trip to Afghanistan and highlights this statement as a sign of warning:
“I know the battle is not yet over. Some of your buddies are going to get injured, and some of your buddies may get killed,” Obama said in an speech to soldiers at Bagram Airfield that preceded his national address. “And there’s going to be heartbreak and pain and difficulty ahead.”
Those comments suggest Obama was aware his speech came nine years to the date of Bush’s mission accomplished moment, and that he wanted to be careful not to follow in his predecessor’s footsteps.
No, it doesn't suggest that. How could it? It suggests that the president is well aware that Regional Command East will be engaged in combat for the rest of this year in order to carry out the staged offensives that our surge always anticipated. First we hit the south. That was done. Now we move east.
You can't have a "mission accomplished" moment when you know that the offensive is continuing because we have not yet accomplished the mission we set out to achieve.
Well, actually you can. President Bush simply observed that we achieved the mission of defeating the Saddam regime and that "major combat operations" were over. He even warned that the future could have tough moments. But the press turned that speech into a major mistake after the insurgencies and terror campaigns supported by Iran and Syria gained momentum. We shall see if the press jumps on what the president said when the offensive in Afghanistan is obviously in progress.
