So says Jeb Bush:
Former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-Fla.) said both he and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton would have ordered the 2003 war in Iraq.
“I would have [authorized the invasion], and so would have Hillary Clinton, just to remind everyone,” Bush told Fox News host Megyn Kelly in an interview that will air Monday night on “The Kelly File.”
“And so would almost everybody that was confronted with the intelligence they got,” he added.
Bush also said he had no disagreement with his brother, former President George W. Bush, over the controversial military campaign.
He disputed during the interview that he had debated ensuring national security for Iraqis with his sibling.
“By the way, guess who thinks those mistakes took place as well?” Bush asked. “George W. Bush.”
Again, “the intelligence on Iraq was wrong” question. Jeb answered the hypothetical correctly. Going to war made absolute sense given the security situation at the time. Jeb most likely would have authorized the Iraq invasion. As for Hillary, may be; for her it would be whether the political calculus be favorable for her.
The intelligence across the board suggested Saddam had WMDs. It is not a group think when the Russians and Chinese also believed Saddam had those type of weapons. They didn’t exactly share their assessments about him with us. In matter of fact, they did everything to prevent/hinder any action against Saddam. He was their client state.
The so-called admission about mistakes made in Iraq, GWB understood the best laid plan is out the window at first contact with the enemy. In war, underestimating and overestimating the enemy is all part of the course. Many of us that served in Iraq and Afghanistan would do it all over again. The only difference, we wouldn’t give the keys to Obama.
@David:
And we now know that the naysayers were far further off than the intel community. They just don’t have the honesty or integrity to admit it.
Got that right!
Be sure not to miss the ‘context’ of the question. If you knew then what you know now, would you have invaded Iraq in 2003? First we know now that Obama got elected in 08 and has given Iraq back to the terrorists. We now know that Obama still doesn’t have a clue. We also now know for sure that the Iraqi’s had WMD. So, knowing that, the correct answer is, Invade Iraq in 2003. Win the war and make it stable prior to 2008. Set up a mutual agreement with Iraq insuring their stability.
Lesson learned, always expect that the person succeeding you may not have good sense and not have a clue and that he will give away the keys to the store.
@Redteam: Imagine how different the Cold War would have turned out had Truman been replaced by an Obama instead of an Eisenhower.
@another vet: Yes, or had Carter not been replaced by Reagan. Carter was sure trying hard to give away the keys.
@Redteam –
Regarding the context of the question,
Megyn’s question relies on the notion that the intel was faulty, or that we, who were there, didn’t find anything. I would refer her to own FNC colleague, LTC Oliver North. In one of his “War Stories” episodes on the Iraq war, repeated two weeks ago, he was shown a large munitions bunker in which cases and cases of chemical artillery shells were stacked. In Western Iraq, my unit stopped a Russian convoy. Our chemical detectors were alarming. The Russian security team (obvious Russian SOF) were becoming nervous. After a 30 minute stand-off, the situation was defused. If it ever reached to the shooting stage, I can tell you who would’ve won. And, it wouldn’t be them.
I would consider the question strictly a hypothetical. It’s like asking a driver who’s just been in a car accident, “if you knew this would happen, would you still have driven today?”
@David: Thanks for your comment David.
Yes it did and I don’t understand why because ‘what we know now’ is that there ‘were’ WMD’S. It was fairly clear to me, by what I saw on tv, that they were there before the war started and were both buried and moved out of the country. For so many to try to deny that is to have their own heads buried in some of that sand. With the clear victory that the US had, we could have worked it out so we would have remained allies with the Iraqi’s, but Obama threw that all away in his ‘haste’ to ‘get out’ of Iraq. We had people around in 1945 (and yes, some of them were Dimocrats) that knew that we couldn’t just ‘walk out’ of Germany and Japan. So yes, I would have invaded Iraq in 03 and completed it prior to my term ending in 09.