Jeb Bush describes Iraq War ‘pretty good deal’
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush continued his 2016 Presidential campaign, speaking at a forum on national security at St. Ambrose College blaming the Obama administration for its failure to achieve a “fragile but secure” peace in the region that has been overrun by ISIS militants. Bush ired critics and his making headlines for noting that the Iraq regime change is a “pretty good deal.”
“I’ll tell you, taking out Saddam Hussein turned out to be a pretty good deal,” Bush stated.
He’s been challenged to support his brother or the Iraq War.
“I’m not saying this because I’m a Bush,” he said. “I’m proud of what he did to create a secure environment for our country.”
In May, Bush said he would have ordered the invasion even in hindsight, then said he misheard the question but declined to answer it, then finally said he would not have gone to war in Iraq knowing the consequences. He called the war a “mistake” in last week’s debate.
Bush shook off questions about the 2003 war’s impact on Thursday, telling the audience that by raising scenarios in which the invasion never occurred, “you’re in Back To The Future and you might as well make a movie out of it.”
Bush argued to msnbc earlier this year that Obama could have renegotiated better terms than his brother had before the final withdrawal in 2011.
“It was a heroic effort and people lost their lives doing this and then to just say to fulfill a campaign promise to get out or Iraq in a precipitous way that we’re out of here and then to create the chaos that came afterward I think is just shameful to be honest with you,” Bush said on Thursday.
Democrats criticized Bush for his assessment that removing Hussein proved “a pretty good deal.”
“Today Jeb Bush laid out that when it comes to learning from his brother’s reckless foreign policy mistakes – carelessly sending troops into war, relying on faulty intelligence, and dismantling our relationships around the world – he hasn’t learned a thing,” Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Holly Shulman said in a statement. “What was made clear today is that under Jeb, we should expect another four years of the Bush Doctrine.”
