Since US President George W. Bush's announcement of “mission accomplished” in Iraq this time a year ago, premature declarations of victory over just about anything have been thin on the ground, and rightly so.

Apparently the dangers of doing so never got through to Premier Alex Scott, who used exactly the same words following Bermuda's day-long invasion of Washington, D.C. last week

Mr. Scott's hyperbole, like Mr. Bush's, may come back to haunt him if the tax haven controversy raises its head again - and it almost certainly will in the long months between now and the US presidential election in November.

That's not say that Mr. Scott and Finance Minister Paula Cox's visit, on which they were accompanied by Bermuda's lobbyist, Ken Levine, was not welcome or sensible.

It is a sign that Bermuda is at long last responding to the public relations battering it been receiving and is at last doing something to get Bermuda's point of view on the table.

And in meeting with such leading politicians as Democratic Senators Max Baucus and Christopher Dodd and Rep. Charles Rangel, Mr. Scott and Ms Cox have at least begun to build some relationships and started to make the case that Bermuda is a good deal more than a tax haven.

Still, it is peculiar that the Bermuda delegation did not appear to spend any time visiting Congressional Republicans, who hold majorities in both houses. And while it is valuable to get the Congressional Black Caucus on Bermuda's side, this remains a small group within the Democratic opposition. Bermuda needs friends on both sides of the political aisle.

But widening Bermuda's base of support can still be done, if Mr. Scott recognises that this is not “mission accomplished”, but the end of the beginning in the belated effort to restore the Island's good reputation.