Whoever came up with the idea of the "Mission Accomplished" banner that has so plagued US President George W. Bush remained as elusive last week as the White House leaker. But here, so far, is the story of "Bannergate" and the hunt for the person or persons behind the two words.
Bush got the story rolling in a Rose Garden news conference on Tuesday, when he distanced himself from the exultant "Mission Accomplished" declaration that his critics increasingly cite as hubristic and premature. As anyone who has watched television lately now knows, the enormous red, white and blue banner served as the backdrop to Bush's May 1 landing in a flight suit on the carrier Abraham Lincoln and his speech on the open deck declaring major combat in Iraq at an end.
PHOTO: AP
"The `Mission Accomplished' sign, of course, was put up by the members of the USS Abraham Lincoln, saying that their mission was accomplished," Bush testily told reporters at the news conference, on another day of violence and death in Iraq. "I know it was attributed somehow to some ingenious advance man from my staff. They weren't that ingenious, by the way."
After the news conference, the White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, tiptoed around the president's words. The banner "was suggested by those on the ship," McClellan said. "They asked us to do the production of the banner, and we did. They're the ones who put it up."
The Democratic presidential candidates immediately pounced, saying that Bush was blaming the Navy for something his advance team had staged. General Wesley Clark told reporters that Bush's comments were "outrageous" and added: "I guess the next thing we're going to hear is that the sailors told him to wear the flight suit and prance around on the aircraft carrier."
So who on the ship came up with the idea for the banner? How involved were White House imagemakers, who embedded themselves on the Lincoln before Bush's speech and were at least present when the idea first surfaced? In short, was there truth to Clark's contention that Bush was unfairly implicating the sailors for a sign at an event that has appeared more and more untimely, particularly after the attack on an helicopter on Sunday that killed 16 American troops in Iraq?
McClellan referred the questions seaward, where the first stop was Commander Conrad Chun, a Navy spokesman in Washington.
"I'll give you the whole scoop," Chun said. "The ship came up with the idea, and thought it would be good to have a banner, `Mission Accomplished.'" The idea popped up in one of the meetings aboard the ship preparing for its homecoming, Chun said, and the sailors then asked if the White House could get the sign made.
But Chun said he was not in any of those meetings, and did not know who had come up with the banner idea.
Next stop was Lieutenant-Commander John Daniels, the public affairs officer aboard the Lincoln, which is now in dry dock in Bremerton, Washington, for maintenance and repairs.
"The sailors came up with an idea of a banner, and they said, `Hey, is there any way we could get a `Mission Accomplished' banner made?'" Daniels said.
But Daniels acknowledged that he, too, was not in any of the meetings preparing for the president's landing and did not know the name of anyone from the Navy who was.
Next stop was again McClellan, who was told that so far the Navy had not produced a "Mission Accomplished" accomplice. McClellan said he would see what he could do.
Soon enough, Daniels called to say that one person in the meetings preparing for the ship's homecoming was Commander Ron Horton, the executive officer of the Lincoln and No. 2 in the ship's command.
Horton was too busy to come to the phone, Daniels said, but he recounted what he said Horton had told him about a shipboard meeting in late April between officers of the Lincoln and members of the White House advance team. The team, some 75 to 100 people strong including security, had boarded the ship in Hawaii around April 28 to make preparations for the president's speech.
"The White House said, `Is there anything we can do for you?"' Daniels said. "Somebody in that meeting said, `You know, it would sure look good if we could have a banner that said `Mission Accomplished.'"
And who was that someone? "No one really remembers," Daniels said.
One of the White House communications people in the meeting, Daniels said, was Scott Sforza, a former ABC producer who oversaw the production of the sign. Sforza did not return telephone calls seeking comment last week.
In any case, Daniels said that it was not uncommon for a ship to have a homecoming banner. "Having a banner hanging off the ship is not unheard of," Daniels said. "Does it happen every single time? No. Does it happen every third time? Probably."
Meanwhile, Republicans said that it was increasingly unlikely that Bush would use the footage of his "Top Gun" landing on the carrier in a campaign commercial.
But would the Democrats consider using it in an attack ad?
"Yes," said Jim Margolis of GMMB, who is making television commercials for the presidential campaign of Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts.
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