From today's Seattle Times, "One year later, Bush backs Iraq speech on carrier":

One year ago today, Bush donned a flight suit, landed on an aircraft carrier and declared "victory" beneath a banner that read "Mission Accomplished." Democrats fretted that the election — not only the Iraq war — might be over.

Nevertheless, the president, now locked in a neck-and-neck race for re-election, stoutly defended his trip to the deck of the Abraham Lincoln, saying the mission had been the removal of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

"A year ago, I did give the speech from the carrier, saying that we had achieved an important objective, that we'd accomplished a mission, which was the removal of Saddam Hussein," Bush said. "And as a result, there are no longer torture chambers or rape rooms or mass graves in Iraq. As a result, a friend of terror has been removed, and now sits in a jail."

Bush had spoken in more sweeping terms on the carrier. "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed," he said. "The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11th, 2001, and still goes on."

While at least 594 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq since the carrier speech, compared with 138 beforehand, the White House insisted yesterday that major combat has not resumed in the country.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan, pressed repeatedly yesterday on how the fighting could not be considered "major," described the violence as "certain areas in Iraq that are dangerous" and "certain areas in Iraq where there are pockets of resistance."