This is an excerpt from State of Denial. I'm no fan of Rumsfeld but it seems that he knew that Bush's "Mission Accomplished" was a stretch.
Bush and his staff were borderline giddy. The president's speechwriters, including Michael Gerson, drafted an address that echoed the formal surrender of Japan on the deck of the battleship USS Missouri at the end of World War II. The draft borrowed General MacArthur's memorable remarks - "the guns are silent" - and according to Rumsfeld included the line "Mission Accomplished".
The Missouri was not available - it was now a memorial at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii - but the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln was at sea off the coast of San Diego.
"I took "Mission Accomplished" out," Rumsfeld recalled. "I was in Baghdad and I was given a draft of that thing and I just died. And I said, it's too inclusive. And I fixed it and sent it back. They fixed the speech but not the sign."
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