Jeb Bush: "Taking out Saddam Hussein turned out to be a pretty good deal
Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush on Thursday defended his brother's handling of the Iraq War and blamed President Obama for the rise of Islamic extremists in the Middle East, suggesting the decision to take out former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein "turned out to be a pretty good deal."
Bush was asked by a moderator at a national security forum in Davenport, Iowa, whether the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) would have become a problem if the U.S., under former President George W. Bush, hadn't invaded Iraq in 2003. He responded, "Who knows, that's such a complicated hypothetical."
"I'll tell you though, that taking out Saddam Hussein turned out to be a pretty good deal," he added.
The Democratic National Committee quickly jumped on Bush's remarks in a statement, saying they demonstrate "he hasn't learned a thing" from his brother's "reckless foreign policy mistakes."
"What was made clear today is that under Jeb, we should expect another four years of the Bush Doctrine," the DNC declared.
In a speech on Tuesday and again in his appearance Thursday, Bush has sought to lay out his position on Iraq, an issue that's tripped up his campaign in the past. He admitted Thursday that mistakes were made in terms of faulty intelligence during the run-up to the war, and the failure to provide security after the initial invasion. He said people "have every right to be critical of the decisions that were made."
However, the Florida Republican argued that his brother's decision to surge the U.S. troop presence in Iraq in 2007 was courageous and helped turned the tide of the war.
"The decision to abandon, to dismantle the Iraqi army was a mistake. And I think my brother would admit that today. But when we got to that point, and we saw the chaos, he had the courage to do something that was completely against the political grain," Bush said.
Bush has blamed Mr. Obama for the rise of ISIS, saying the president was intent on pulling all the U.S. troops out of the country to fulfill a campaign promise. Bush said Thursday that Mr. Obama's strategy to combat the extremist group has been to "run out the clock," calling it an "exercise to get past January of 2017 and head off to Chicago."
The Florida Republican also weighed in on the issue of enhanced interrogation techniques, dubbed "torture" by critics, that were approved by the Bush administration in the aftermath of September 11. While refusing to make a blanket statement ruling out the use of such techniques, Bush said, "I do think in general torture is not appropriate, it's not as effective. And the change in policy that my brother did, and was put into executive order form by the president was the proper thing to do."