Jeb Bush now says, ‘I would not have gone into Iraq’

[brooklynite]

Source: Washington Post

[

TEMPE, Ariz. – After a week of painfully struggling to talk about the war in Iraq started by his brother, Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush stated definitively here Thursday that he would not have invaded that country based on the intelligence failures that now are known.

“Knowing what we now know, what would you have done? I would have not engaged. I would not have gone into Iraq,” Bush said at a campaign stop before a few dozen local business leaders at Four Seasons Brewery in Tempe.

Bush tried to explain his days of difficulty articulating a clear position on Iraq as the result of being reluctant to say anything that might suggest he was ungrateful for the sacrifice of the U.S. armed forces and their families during 12 years of war.

"It’s very hard for me to say that their lives were lost in vain," Bush said. "In fact, they weren’t. We have the greatest military in the face of the earth.” He added, "Their sacrifice was worth honoring, not depreciating."

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/05/14/jeb-bush-now-says-i-would-not-have-gone-into-iraq/

---

To quote Regis Philbin..."is that your FINAL answer"?

[blm]

1. You mean you WOULDN'T cook the Iraq intel books like your brother and Cheney did?

Mistake, my ass. Those intel books were cooked in order to lie to other world leaders, to congress, to media and to the American people.

[karynnj]

14. Whether the intelligence was faulty or not in October 2002, there was NO problem with

it by March 2003. Jeb Bush may have decided that playing the card that he, like his brother and like HRC, would have gone to war ... and then blaming it on the intelligence may have backfired, but it also may have been an attempt to conflate Clinton's vote in October to Bush's rush to war in March 2003.

By March 2003, the IAEA and Hans Blix's team had both been Iraq for about 5 months. They had invasive inspections even in the Presidential palaces. No WMD were found, though the inspection process was not then complete.

Since about 2005, the Republicans have conflated the time when there was the vote to the time the decision was made to invade. I can't tell you how many people I speak to - left or right - who think they happened within weeks of each other. Jeb implicitly said that when he spoke of everyone having the same intelligence. It is clearly not true that the Congress had the same information in October 2002 as Bush had in March 2003 -- and that would have been true had there been no cherry picking of intelligence in the various reports the Congress has available to them.

If you read the speeches, you could not rule out that Saddam had WMD, nor could you prove that he did. No inspectors had been in Iraq since 1998. Those who voted no often argued that authority to go to war was premature, not that they could rule out WMD. After the vote, inspectors started invasive inspections, and Iraq cooperated even to the extent of destroying missiles that potentially went further than allowed. By early 2003, the inspectors wrote reports that made WMD far less likely AND you could point to cooperation on the part of Iraq in the process.

Therefore, Jeb was intentionally lying when he spoke of the intelligence being the same. The intelligence was far more complete and current in early 2003. In fact, had Bush been telling the truth in the run up to the vote, his own actions would have been far different.

Think about it, he could have let the inspectors complete their work and proposed to the UN that some form of continued monitoring be allowed in exchange for the sanctions, that had done major damage in the decade they were in place, being gradually lifted. (Biden had said in 2008 that the likely dropping of sanctions by other countries was part of the concern in 2002.) It is hard to imagine how much better the world would be had he done this ---- even if it likely would have made it impossible to defeat him. (He would still be a war time President because of Afghanistan, but he could actually have claimed a major diplomatic accomplishment in assuring Iraq would not be a threat while getting rid of sanctions that harmed our relations in the area.

The decision to go to war was President George W. Bush's.

[blm]

16. Absolutely. Kerry sided with weapon inspectors publicly and AGAINST any DECISION to invade.

that seems to get lost in all the revisionism efforts from both sides.

[karynnj]

23. Not just Kerry who actually spoke out on January 23, 2003 saying not to rush to war,

every Congressperson or Senator who voted yes in 2002 who did so because of concerns that predated the Bush administration that Saddam with weapons could be a nightmare situation.

That does not mean that the vote was "right", it is clear in retrospect that they should have had a bill supporting just the goals that all agreed on - to get inspectors in and to work with the UN. I don't think that many Senators would have voted for a war authorization in early 2003, given that the Iraqis were cooperating and the inspectors were not finding anything that could be called a WMD. It might have been especially difficult as the Iraqis cooperated to the point of destroying some of their own missiles.

It is true that few Democrats spoke out against going to war then, but that actually might have been difficult given that it was clear the troops were already moving to the Middle east. (It is noteworthy that Kerry did and was called antiwar - at least through the first half of 2003. In his case, we also now know that in January 2003, he was dealing with the knowledge that he had cancer - so it is remarkable that he made time to give that speech.)

[Gidney N Cloyd]

2. What part of "in vain" doesn't he understand?

[Journeyman]

3. Man has convictions as firm as Jell-O . . .

[Journeyman]

4. Nobody's questioning the military. The question is, Were they used irresponsibly, indeed, criminally? . . .

[sendero]

21. I have to disagree..

.... I hold the top brass in the involved military completely responsible. They more than just about anyone should have known better. They more than anyone should have questioned going into a country and expecting it to take "weeks". They more than anyone were in a position to know the "intel" was made up bullshit.

They are as complicit as anyone IMHO.

[No Vested Interest]

5. But- can we believe what he says now? Or did he say initially what he really thinks and

is now trying to spin it?

[world wide wally]

6. LOL… The worst part is that people will believe him

[onehandle]

7. The 'Smart' Bush Brother. nt

[awoke_in_2003]

18. I know, right?

"Bush tried to explain his days of difficulty articulating a clear position"

"We have the greatest military in the face of the earth"

A regular Alfred Einstein.





(for those who don't know, Phil Simms (broadcaster) was once talking about a player and said he was a regular Alfred Einstein. Simms isn't the brightest bulb in the bunch, either)

[Backwoodsrider]

31. yep I bought that idea for 15 years that he was the smart Bush

But at least these last couple months he appears to be just like his brother but I have to remember him and his campaign team are just starting maybe they will get it together lol

[underpants]

8. Said this guy in a brewery

[cstanleytech]

9. Around and around he goes and where he stops no one knows. nt

[underpants]

10. "...on the face of the Earth"?!? What does he know about the Aliens? C.H.U.D.s???

Are the C.H.U.D.s armed? Oh God! Not the Sharia C.H.U.D.s in Oklahoma!!!!

[awoke_in_2003]

19. In fairness...

he said IN the face of the earth. This guy is a regular rocket surgeon.

[underpants]

24. LOL

Good point. But then you are being pedantic.

[Hoppy]

11. WhatdahelzamatterU ? C.H.U.D.s are urban, hence the "U".

Iraq is now a vaste, dessert wasteland, thanks to McChimp.

[NCjack]

12. This flip-flopping is confusing. I though GWB is the Bush brother who is a drunk. nt

[Gregorian]

13. It took a while for George to get back to him. Must have been cuttng brush.

It's hard work being a campaign advisor.

[3catwoman3]

29. Or painting...

...in the shower.

[wordpix]

15. He was for it before he was against it - let's throw that old line back at 'em

[global1]

17. I Would Call This A Flip Flop And Didn't A Democratic Nominee In Years Past Pay ....

very dearly for being for something before he was against something. Is there a double standard out there or will we hold Jeb's feet to the fire on this flip flop?

[awoke_in_2003]

20. Jeb bush makes as much sense

as a left handed football bat.

[spiderpig]

22. Why doesn't Melonhead just go away?

Oh - that's right. They don't.

Loathe that entire clan.

[wiggs]

25. HE IS AN ORIGINAL PNAC SIGNER! Along with Wolfowitz, Cheney, Libby, etc....

of course he would have gone into Iraq no matter the evidence or lack thereof as would all the Neocons. I don't understand why PNAC isn't discussed by journalists, pundits, and dem leaders every time the words 'Bush' and 'Iraq' are used in the same sentence.

[wiggs]

27. The next question he gets from a bright student should be something like

...what exactly did you and Cheney mean when you said that the US and the west would have a hard time gaining a foothold in the middle east unless there was a 'new Pearl Harbor' type event in the US?

There are enough questions about Iraq, Neocons, and Bush to keep students in Bush's audience busy until November 2016.

[still_one]

26. I think that covers all possible answers. I can hardly wait until they ask the next

question

[arcane1]

28. Sorry Jeb, their lives were indeed lost in vain. Pimping their dead bodies won't change that fact.

[3catwoman3]

30. If a family member of mine had died there...

...I damn well would consider it in vain.

[arcane1]

32. A follow-up question would've been great.

"If they didn't die in vain, then what did they die for? You just admitted they didn't die defeating a "threat"."

[mike dub]

33. Jeb has more flip flops this week than does Panama City Beach during Spring Break

Only a slight exaggeration ;0)

[SummerSnow]

34. Flip flopping already

[daleo]

35. I wouldn't have done it

Except I would have.

Except I wouldn't have done it.

Except I would have.

Except I wouldn't have.

All clear?