Jeb Bush says it was a mistake to invade Iraq.
The Republican White House prospect clarified his position on the war his brother authorized. The former Florida governor ended several days of confusion about his foreign policy while campaigning Thursday in Arizona.
Bush said that given the benefit of hindsight, “I would have not gone into Iraq.”
In interviews earlier in the week, Bush refused to say whether he would have launched the 2003 invasion if he’d been in President George W. Bush’s shoes. He said Thursday he was reluctant to say the invasion was the wrong decision because he didn’t want to dishonor the lives of American troops killed there.
The justification for the war was based on faulty intelligence that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.
(AP)
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8 Responses
so will he oppose ISIS and Boko Haram?
Is he moving towards Rand Paul’s neo-isolationism
Is there a risk that in 2016 the Democrats will be the internationalists and the Republicans will be the isolationists (which was the case in Gore-Bush in 2000 – Bush was against foreign adventurism until reality mugged him)
why bash your own brother.?you wont win this election anyway. you know your brother went to war because of your father.
Yes here we go again. These AP guys are gonna pump him up till the day he’s nominated, and then start throwing bombs…
#1: Bush 43 was always an internationalist, even before elected.
“Jeb Bush: ‘I Would Have Not Gone Into Iraq’”
This is NOT what he said, or meant. Most of his quote is cited by YWN. “Bush said that given the benefit of hindsight, “I would have not gone into Iraq.” Since only a navi has hindsight in advance…..
The relevant question is: given the exact same information now that his brother had then, WITHOUT the benefit of hindsight, would he go into Iraq.
“The justification for the war was based on faulty intelligence that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction”
So, blame the intelligence community.
No matter what he says, or how he says it, or how much sense it makes, Jeb Bush is now subject to the first rule of politics: It’s not about whether you’re right, just whether you’re slick. The abridged statement that constitutes the YWN headline is a case in point.
#4 – George W was saying how we shouldn’t be in the “nation building” business. He didn’t want to alienate the “Pat Buchanan wing” of the Republicans. Gore-Lieberman were the more internationalist in thatg election. Indeed, the Democrats didn’t really move to neo-isolationism until 2008.
That’s a cowardly answer. Decisions have to be made based on the intelligence information at the time, not media propaganda after the fact.