You forgot Poland
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"You forgot Poland" is a catch phrase based on a statement by United States President George W. Bush concerning Poland's involvement in the Iraq War during the first presidential election debate on September 30, 2004, during the 2004 U.S. presidential race.
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[edit] Presidential debates
During the debate John Kerry accused Bush of failing to gain international support for the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, saying "... when we went in, there were three countries: Great Britain, Australia and the United States. That's not a grand coalition. We can do better." Bush replied by saying "Well, actually, he forgot Poland." "You forgot Poland" is thus a misquotation.
The issue of "forgetting Poland" may have reminded some of President Gerald Ford's statement in a 1976 televised debate. Ford did not "believe that the Poles consider themselves dominated by the Soviet Union." This was widely regarded as a crucial gaffe.[citation needed]
[edit] Popularization of the term
Paraphrased as "You forgot Poland", the term became a popular catch phrase among Bush detractors, seen as a humorously petty rebuttal of Kerry's original point (i.e. that Bush claimed that over 40 nations were "supporting" the invasion, when the number of nations that had contributed over 1,000 troops was low; therefore even if Bush's statement was entirely accurate, four nations with large troop numbers on the ground as opposed to three was still nowhere near forty). The phrase was used on bumper stickers, T-shirts and other merchandise.
[edit] Polish involvement in the Iraq War
Poland's level of involvement in the Iraq offensive at the time of Bush's statement became a subject of debate, however at the time Bush made the comment in 2004, Poland had made a contribution of troops to Iraq. Official American and Polish sources show that 184 soldiers from the elite Polish commando units GROM and Formosa participated in the March 2003 invasion, with combat being confirmed by the Polish government on March 24. By August, 2003, Poland had become one of the major partners of the multinational force in Iraq, with 2,500 soldiers in southern Iraq. This contribution placed them behind only the United States, United Kingdom, South Korea, and Italy in terms of the number of troops contributed.
[edit] European software patents
In late 2004, the European Union's patent law proposal, which had been criticized on the grounds that it essentially legalized software patents in the European Union, was delayed by objections from Poland. In an intentional reference to the Bush quotation, the slogan was used to describe this incident.[citation needed]
