Donald Trump: I Would Never Have Invaded Iraq (May 18, 2015)

Newsmax ^ | May 18, 2015 | Sandy Fitzgerald

[sickoflibs]

Donald Trump said Monday that he would have never invaded Iraq, and thought that Sen. Marco Rubio, a candidate for the 2016 GOP nomination, "made a total fool of himself" over the weekend while answering a rhetorical question about the war.

"We shouldn't have been there, but once were there, we probably should have stayed," Trump, who has been flirting with a campaign announcement of his own, told Fox News' "Fox & Friends" program Monday. "The Middle East has been decapitated. It's a mess; the balance has been lost between Iraq and Iran. Things were better in the old days."

On Sunday, Rubio told Fox News' Chris Wallace that he does not think former President George W. Bush made a mistake to attack, based on the intelligence he had on hand, and refused to answer a rhetorical question based on 20/20 hindsight.

[sickoflibs]

I know this is a few months old but I was looking for a written source to Trump's Iraq comments made +yesterday, and came across this.

Yesterdays comments were similar to this except he went after GWB on it too.

[AmericanCheeseFood]

Because he’s kind of left of some of the big named liberals on certain things.

[montag813]

Good. Instead of Bush’s inane “nation building,” with idiots like Wolfowitz thinking the Arab savages even wanted democracy, we should have invaded Pakistan instead, taken their nukes, and made the Saudi “kingdom” a U.S. protectorate. what a waste. Bush was such a moron, he wouldn’t even use his 90% approval rating to open up ANWR in Feb 2002. Loser.

[McGruff]

“These character like Rubio made a total fool of himself on Chris Wallace’s program, talking about we were better off without Saddam Hussein” Trump said. “Give me a break. Right now we have ISIS, which is worse than Hussein. Hussein did one thing: he killed terrorists.”

Is Trump wrong?

[woofie]

how quickly we forget

[dainbramaged]

100%

[McGruff]

DONALD TRUMP: Jeb Bush is a puppet to his donors, there’s no question about it; he’s got lobbyists, I know them, and he made statements over the last couple of days that were incredible, trying to justify the war in Iraq.

It can’t be justified. And then he said “skin in the game.” I don’t know if you saw his recent statement. The U.S. has to prove to Iraq that we have “skin in the game.”

We spent $2 trillion, thousands of lives lost, wounded warriors all over the place, and he said we have to prove that we have skin in the game. I think it may be one of the dumbest statements I’ve ever heard.

“Skin in the game?”

We don’t have to prove anything. First of all, the Iraqi leaders are a bunch of crooks. If there even is an Iraq, which I don’t think there is. Iran is taking over Iraq. It was one of the dumbest things ever. And I think what happened, because I understand psychology, I think his brother said ‘you’re killing me.’

That was his war, and he looks very bad, so Jeb Bush tried to push back, but when he said to Iraq that was have to have skin in the game, when we spent all those lives and all that money. I think he should apologize to the families of the people.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/08/16/donald_trump_puppet_jeb_bush_should_apologize_for_defending_iraq_war.html

I agree.

[alloysteel]

Iraq was always a diversion, the real enemy was Iran. The fortunate thing was, that Saddam Hussein was doing a pretty good job of keeping the Iranians at bay for the many years after the Shah was kicked off the throne, and the Iranians were kept from doing mischief elsewhere.

Saddam was a brutal SOB, but for years, he was OUR SOB, until he went all fickle on us, and the US had to teach him a lesson. The First Gulf War curbed him back a little bit in line, but then, he went into warlord mode on various factions within Iraq, and it looked like the country was about to spin totally out of control.

Bush-43 made an executive decision, and it was to either get Hussein back on board, or put in a substitute player. Saddam did not like either option, and he made the fight a lot more strenuous than it might otherwise have been. Meanwhile, like fighting a forest fire, other little side conflicts began cropping up, and the very situation that had been the focus of the fears to begin with, began to form up in reality.

The fire got damped down, but it was not completely out, and the alliance that had deposed Hussein departed too soon.

My take on The Donald is that he would have gone directly to Saddam Hussein and held him to the terms of the rough agreement that had been forced upon Iraq after the First Gulf War.

[GeronL]

didn’t Trump just recently say we should invade Iraq and steal their oil...

Which is ridiculous with $40 a barrell

[sickoflibs]

RE:”didn’t Trump just recently say we should invade Iraq and steal their oil...”

That is not as easy to do as Trump makes it sound.

The oil is in the ground.

I wouldn't want to be a oil worker over there under those conditions, the US grabbing it.

[grobdriver]

One thing I’ve notice about Trump - he’s an equal-opportunity pisser-offer.

[AmericanCheeseFood]

It’s easy though. Trump wasn’t there to make that decision, nor everything involved in the decision when it was made.

So he’s just talking up a storm and running against Bush.

His campaign to me looks so much like Obama’s now. A guy, who just continues moving through the whole spectrum of political points it would seem, getting media attention, swatting at Republicans and now a former President which hasn’t been in office for almost 8 years.

Trump to me holds little appeal.

[AmericanCheeseFood]

It’s easy though. Trump wasn’t there to make that decision, nor everything involved in the decision when it was made.

So he’s just talking up a storm and running against Bush.

His campaign to me looks so much like Obama’s now. A guy, who just continues moving through the whole spectrum of political points it would seem, getting media attention, swatting at Republicans and now a former President which hasn’t been in office for almost 8 years.

Trump to me holds little appeal.

[AmericanCheeseFood]

Hint: Trump just says a lot of stuff. He tends to forget too.

[Reaper19]

This is one of the things that Trump has been consistant on since the war. I am surprised though that running against another Bush he isn’t reminding everyone about how badly he wanted George W Bush impeached back when he was president.

[hosepipe]

Because he’s kind of left of some of the big named liberals on certain things.
-----------------------------------------------------

Trump will say anything to elected.. even if it sounds conservative..
He's channeling Barack... Boehner, McConnell.. and any democrat worth their salt..

TRUMP is riding the ANGST-TRAIN to the White House.. you know... like Barack OBAMA did...

promise them the world and do what you please after elected..
throw a few bones OR NOT it makes no difference THEN..

A TRUMP Presidency would be a MONEY PIT for the crony capitalists..

NO I'm WRONG.. it would be a GIGANTIC Money pit for the Crony's.. even bigger than under Obama..

AND conservatives are following like Pomeranian's (lap dogs) BARKING like HEll..

THATS WHY----->

[Wolfie]

Another big plus for Trump.

[Ben Ficklin]

"he wouldn't even use his 90% approval rating to open ANWR"

Bush didn't have the authority to open ANWR because it was/is covered by a Congressional moratorium.

Bush did open Area 181 in the Gulf of Mexico in Dec 2001, but within 2 days Congress overturned that. It would not be until Dec 2006 that Congress would open Area 181 and South 181 in GOMESA, which was one of the last acts of the GOP controlled congress after losing the Nov 2006 election.

In 2008, because Congress was going take up Cap and Trade(which failed to pass) plus a companion energy bill in 2009, Congress would allow most of the offshore moratoriums to lapse, after which Bush would set in motion the move to drill the mid-Atlantic region.

Obama has followed thru on that and as I recall, they are a couple of years away from drilling offshore Virginia. Likewise, Obama opened the Arctic offshore and Shell made their first attempt in 2012 and are returning there this year.

[Vigilanteman]

People quickly forget just how impotent G.W. Bush was after that razor thin 2000 election and moved into positive territory only after 2001.

Yes, he could have and should have pressed more with the political capital which he had, when he had it. He spent way more time than he should have trying to make nice with the opposition.

But I don't think even he could have guessed what a hard-core anti-American president would succeed him. The string of Democrat nominees up to that point had been merely buffoons, which our constitution designed us to survive.

[VanDeKoik]

Sadly it got us little more than a failed state that is part-controlled by ISIS.