Posted on 05/11/2015 5:36:03 PM PDT by lbryce
If Jeb Bush would still invade Iraq knowing what we know now, 12 years after the fact, then “there has to be something wrong” with him, conservative radio host Laura Ingraham said Monday morning.
In a pre-taped Fox News interview, Megyn Kelly asked Bush whether he’d still send American forces into Iraq, as we did in 2003, knowing now about the faulty intelligence that drove the initial occupation. Not only did he answer in the affirmative, but he suggested Hillary Clinton would do the same.
That response was worrisome, according to Ingraham. “No, Hillary wouldn’t,” she exclaimed. “[She] wouldn’t authorize the war now, if she knew what she knew now then. No, of course not!”
Even though the question is purely hypothetical, Ingraham continued, “You have to say ‘No’ to that; you can’t say, ‘Yes, I’d still would have gone into Iraq.’
(Excerpt) Read more at mediaite.com ...
At the time we had little choice and I still support it. Hussein was responsible for the deaths of 1.3 million innocents. He was working with Libya to develop a bomb. He told his CIA handler in prison that he planned to continue when the heat was off.
The real problem is that Obama chose to surrender what had been won. He told them when we were leaving and left a vacuum. We all knew exactly what was going to happen. Since John Kennedy, there is a recurrent theme that this country has learned: NEVER TRUST A DEMOCRAT WITH NATIONAL SECURITY.
I think it is a valid question and one that every GOP candidate should answer.
Personally, FWIW, I think toppling Saddam was a mistake because (a) he kept the Iranians in check, (b) building a friendly democracy in the Muslim Middle East is a fool’s errand - a super costly and unending burden, and (c) empowering the Iranians increased Sunni support for ISIS.... None of this is to excuse Obama, who made things much, much worse by leaving Iraq precipitously and by supporting the anti-Assad forces in Syria. But just because Obama is a disaster does not in itself prove that the Bush foreign policy was a good idea.
Finally!
Well met, indeed.
There are 30 million reasons why I won’t vote for Jeb Bush.
The mistake was his daddy’s when he didn’t go to Baghdad in 1991.
I hate to defend Bush, but I heard the interview, and I’m pretty sure he was saying that given what was known at the time that he would have invaded Iraq. He named other name(s)...Hillary as one who he said would have done the same.
That said his immigration stance is Hillary’s, he supports Common Core, never saw a dime he didn’t want to spend, and he’s just goofy. He’s a liberal. He is not a conservative by any stretch of any honest person’s imagination.
When you put an experienced general in charge, things tend to get done, and get done right. When you put a clueless civilian in charge (Paul Bremer in Iraq), things get fouled up almost immediately. And then they go downhill from there.
I’m not a Jeb supporter, but Laura has it totally wrong. She is acting like a typical lib in distorting and misreporting what Jeb said.
Jeb said he would invade, GIVEN THE INFORMATION THEY HAD AT THE TIME. But that with the information they have had since, he would have to do things differently - and he said that Dubya says the same.
I disagree with Laura and Jeb. I believe the information we had then was more accurate than the “information” we have today. I agree with the idea of putting a military government in place, similar to what was done with Japan.
This outburst of Laura’s has diminished my regard for her tremendously.
I supported the war in Afghanistan. I didn’t support the war in Iraq then or now. There is nothing there worth our soldiers lives or the untold trillions of our economy that were spent there (or will be spent). It was a more stable middle east back then too. Sure, Saddam was a brutal dictator. And an asshole. But he killed infitessimally less than any average day now. And the Iraqis & islamists feared him. We went and killed their boogeyman.
I agree with everything you wrote. I would add that Jeb should have seen that question coming and prepared a better answer.
He was never going to get my vote...but he lost a lot of other potential votes w/ his answer.
Even after being attacked on 9-11?
Think about it!
I agree with you and the funny thing to be honest if you look at the whole conflict in Iraq, to an extent we did the dirty work of Iran unknowingly, for we got rid of Saddam, let a Shia led government take over Iraq, and I would think behind the scenes they are thanking us while calling us idiots for doing it.
Should have drew our own damn oil.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/gunning/etc/arsenal.html
IRAQ’S NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAM
Between 1991 and 1998 the IAEA conducted more than 1500 inspections. IAEA released a report in 1997, with updates in 1998 and 1999, which it believes offers a technically coherent picture of Iraq’s nuclear program.
In summary, the IAEA report says that following the August 1990 invasion of Kuwait, Iraq launched a “crash program” to develop a nuclear weapon quickly by extracting weapons grade material from safe-guarded research reactor fuel. This project, if it had continued uninterrupted by the war, might have succeeded in producing a deliverable weapon by the end of 1992.[1]
The IAEA inspections revealed seven nuclear-related sites in Iraq. [2] The IAEA reports that all sensitive nuclear materials were removed, and that facilities and equipment were dismantled or destroyed. Activities uncovered and destroyed included:
an industrial scale complex for Electromagnetic Isotope Separation (EMIS), a process for producing enriched uranium. The complex was designed for the installation of 90 separators; before the Gulf War, eight were functional. If all separators had been installed, the plant could have produced 15 kg of highly enriched uranium per year, possibly enough for one nuclear weapon.
a large scale manufacturing and testing facility—the Al Furat Project—designed for the production of centrifuges, used in another method of uranium enrichment.
facilities and equipment for the production of weapons components.
computer simulations of nuclear weapons detonations
storage of large quantities of HMX high explosive used in nuclear weapons.
According to former U.N. inspector David Kay, Iraq spent over $10 billion during the 1980s in an attempt to enrich uranium and build a nuclear weapon. However, the Agency concludes that as of December, 1998, “There were no indications to suggest that Iraq was successful in its attempt to produce nuclear weapons,” or “that there remains in Iraq any physical capability for the production of amounts of weapons-usable nuclear material of any practical significance.” However, the IAEA did find that “Iraq was at, or close to, the threshold of success in such areas as the production of [highly enriched uranium] ... and the fabrication of the explosive package for a nuclear weapon.” Despite the fact that the facilities and nuclear material had been destroyed or removed, as early as 1996 the IAEA concluded that “the know-how and expertise acquired by Iraqi scientists and engineers could provide an adequate base for reconstituting a nuclear-weapons-oriented program.”
Nuclear physicist and Iraqi defector Khidhir Hamza agrees. He told FRONTLINE that Iraq did not relinquish certain critical components of the nuclear program to the inspectors, and that it retains the expertise necessary to build a nuclear weapon. He believes that Iraq may have one completed within the next couple of years.
Note: IAEA was allowed back into Iraq in January 2000 and again in January 2001. But its inspectors were blocked from full access inspections.
There was no mistake in invading Iraq, the mistake was the Bolshies used the straw man of UN resolutions on weapons of mass destruction to delay or kill any overthrow of a Socialist brother, Saddam. The real reason for Iraq was to prove to the Muslim world that there was no safe place for terrorists.
1. Does it mean knowing what we know now, that the invasion would turn out to be the disaster it was, would you still support it? of course not.
Or
2. Does it mean with what happened, the destruction of the Twin Towers, and not knowing the outcome of the war, would you still have supported the war?
Of course knowing the outcome, no one would support it.
But ultimately, the real question is, with all the unknowns about how the war would turn out, the question of unintended circumstances, the fact that these people have been fighting for thousands of years with a hatred inbred in their psyche, were we wrong for taking the chance of going to war?
The upside was so very little, while the downside was an infinite abyss. Just think about the fact that the question of unintended consequences that the invasion wrought is what spawned ISIS.
Is Democracy so omnipotent, so mollifying that it would conquer a primitive, backward civilization, mired in the 7th century, a 2 percent literacy rate, a GNP among 250 million people less than Holland, if you remove the oil the exports, a society that is barbaric, brutal, with a moral code that at the center of their society spawns the very worst of humanity going to succeed?
The answer is an unequivocal absolute no.
in retrospect it was stupid, justified by stupid and executed brilliantly by our military only to be thrown away by our politicians ala vietnam.
our immediate targets after afganistan should have been covert action against iran and pakistan.
all we acomplished was to destablilize the strategic stalemate between iran and iraq. stupid. just stupid.
It was an incredibly brazen act of impulsive,vainglorious stupidity with absolutely no thought of there possibly being a downside or any real thought to unraveling what the disastrous outcome might be.
There has to be something wrong with her not to understand that there were a half-dozen good reasons for going into Iraq when we did - between this and her agreeing with O’Reilly that Pamela Geller was at fault for her free-speech stand, I don’t see much reason to listen to very much of what she has to say from here on in.....
not to speak of the political fallout for conservatism, not compassionate conservatism, aka leftism, but for true conservatism. what foolishness to invade on the limited “intelligence” they seem to have had.
once bush promised incontrovertible proof for nuclear wmd to get many conservatives on board (full disclosure including me), he had to produce that proof in spades and produce it in a hostile news media. he failed miserably and the consequences still reverberate. one can only ask why he and the GOPe did it. the theories are legion and all produce headshaking disbelief.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.