U.S. President George W. Bush declares 2003 invasion of Iraq over in ‘Mission Accomplished’ speech 20 years ago this hour #OnThisDay #OTD (May 1 2003)

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(Thursday May 2, 2003, 6:01 p.m. PDT during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, part of the Iraq War, the Iraq conflict and the War on terror) — U.S. President George W. Bush declared an end to the invasion of Iraq in the Mission Accomplished speech, delivered tonight from the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln before thousands of uniformed sailors and aviators as the ship approached San Diego Harbor.


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Bush, who had launched the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq six weeks earlier,  became the first sitting president to arrive in an arrested landing in a fixed-wing aircraft on an aircraft carrier when he arrived at the Abraham Lincoln in a Lockheed S-3 Viking, dubbed Navy One, as the carrier lay just off the San Diego coast, having returned from combat operations in the Persian Gulf.


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He posed for photographs with pilots and members of the ship’s crew while wearing a flight suit.

A few hours later, he mounted a podium before a White House-produced banner that said “Mission Accomplished” and gave a speech announcing the end of major combat operations in the Iraq War.


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Reading from a prepared text, he said, “Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed” because “the regime [the Iraqi dictatorship of Saddam Hussein] is no more.”

Although Bush went on to say that “Our mission continues” and “We have difficult work to do in Iraq,” his words implied that the Iraq War was over and America had won.


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Bush’s assertions—and the sign itself—became controversial as the Iraqi insurgency gained pace and developed into a full-on sectarian war.

The vast majority of casualties, U.S. and Iraqi, military and civilian, occurred after the speech. U.S. troops fought in Iraq for eight more years.