BY RICHARD SISK & JAMES GORDON MEEK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON - Five years after President Bush's "Mission Accomplished" speech about Iraq, America's twin wars are looking more like "Mission: Impossible."

On May 1, 2003, Bush flew on a Navy jet to the carrier Lincoln, where he announced "major c****at operations in Iraq have ended" and the U.S. had "prevailed."

Today, that same ship is sailing back to the Persian Gulf and 4,370 coalition troops and thousands more Iraqis are dead.

The U.S. is no closer to Bush's pledge that "we will leave."

In April, the U.S. death toll spiked to 50, the most since September, prompting White House spokeswoman Dana Perino to remark Wednesday, "It's been a very tough month in Iraq, but we are taking the fight to the enemy."

In his Lincoln speech, the President also boasted: "In the battle of Afghanistan, we destroyed the Taliban, many terrorists, and the camps where they trained."

Yet in 2007, a record 232 coalition troops died in that country, where the Taliban insurgency has expanded to every corner and Al Qaeda has "reconstituted some of its pre-9/11 operational capabilities," a State Department report grimly stated Wednesday.

U.S. troop strength in Afghanistan has grown from 8,000 five years ago to 31,000.

One official attributed last year's 16% increase in violence cited in the new report to NATO troops going on the offensive.

"When there were no cowboys in Indian country, there was no fighting going on," NATO Brig. Gen. Carlos Branco told the Daily News. "When you introduce a lot of new cowboys into the area, you get a lot more fighting."

In 2003, Bush said the Army's 82nd Airborne Division was "on the trail of the terrorists" in Afghanistan; the unit has returned twice.

In Kabul that day, ex-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, "We're at a point where we clearly have moved from major c****at activity to a period of stability and reconstruction."