Washington, DC – Two decades ago, on May 1, 2003, then-US President George W Bush declared “major combat operations in Iraq have ended” in a speech aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, with a banner behind him proclaiming “mission accomplished”.
The theatrical event, coming just 43 days after the United States had launched a ground invasion of Iraq, was meant to declare the beginning of the end of one of the main prongs of Washington’s so-dubbed post-September 11, 2001 “global war on terror” (GWOT).
