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Jeb Bush (Ricardo Arduengo, AP)
The legacy of the Iraq invasion of 2003 is starting to shadow the Jeb Bush presidential campaign for 2016.
Some conservatives are criticizing Jeb Bush for saying that — like his brother, George W. Bush — he, too, would have authorized the invasion of a dozen years ago.
“I would have and so would have Hillary Clinton, just to remind everybody,” Jeb Bush told Megyn Kelly of Fox News. “And so would almost everybody that was confronted with the intelligence they got.”
Talk show host Laura Ingraham, one of Bush’s most outspoken critics, said he should have answered the question “no,” given the fact that no major weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq. Otherwise, she said. “then there has to be something wrong with you.”
Ingraham added: “You can’t think going into Iraq now, as a sane human being, was the right thing to do. That’s like you have no ability to learn from past mistakes at all.”
There may have been some confusion over the question posed during the Fox News interview of Bush.
Kelly asked Bush: “Knowing what we know now, would you have authorized the invasion?”
Bush appeared to answer the question based on what was known at the time, the widespread belief — based on intelligence sources — that Iraq indeed had weapons of mass destruction.
“In retrospect,” the former Florida governor said, “the intelligence that everybody saw — that the world saw, not just the United States — was faulty. And in retrospect, once we invaded and took out Saddam Hussein, we didn’t focus on security first, and the Iraqis in this incredibly insecure environment turned on the United States military because there was no security for themselves and their families.”
He added: “By the way, guess who thinks that those mistakes took place as well? George W. Bush.”
The Iraq issue — and the George W. Bush legacy — figures to follow Jeb Bush if he formally declares a campaign for president.
And several commentators believe he needs a new answer on Iraq.
Byron York of The Washington Examiner — in an article titled “Jeb Bush’s disastrous defense of the Iraq War” — writes:
“If Jeb Bush sticks to his position — that he would still authorize war knowing what we know today — it will represent a step backward for the Republican Party.”
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