First, former Florida governor Jeb Bush told Fox News that, yes, knowing what we know now, he still would have invaded Iraq.
The next day, Bush tried to backtrack and said that he misunderstood the question.
“I interpreted the question wrong, I guess. I was talking about given what people knew then, would you have done it, rather than knowing what we know now,” Bush said on Sean Hannity’s radio show. “And knowing what we know now, clearly there were mistakes as it related to faulty intelligence in the lead up to the war and the lack of focus on security.”
When Hannity asked what Bush would have done in hindsight, he said, “…I don’t know what decision that would’ve been. That’s a hypothetical, but the simple fact was mistakes were made, as they always are in life and foreign policy.”
Now Bush has yet again changed his answer to the question.
“So here’s the deal,” Bush told a crowd in Arizona, according to NPR. “If we’re all supposed to answer hypothetical questions, knowing what we know now, I would not have engaged. I would not have gone into Iraq. That’s not to say that the world is safer because Saddam Hussein is gone. It is significantly safer.”
So Bush gave an answer the public didn’t like, then tried to pretend he didn’t understand the question, and then changed his first answer completely. If he can’t understand a simple question, how in the world can he be expected to understand complex foreign policy? His handling of this mess gives a glimpse into what a Jeb Bush presidency would be like.
It’s not good.
