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Jeb Bush now says 'I would not have gone into Iraq'

 
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush answers a question from small business owner Nick Goodman at a town hall meeting at Four Peaks Brewery Thursday in Tempe, Ariz. The likely presidential candidate took a tour of the brewery and then took questions from a crowd of small business owners and others.[Tom Tingle | Arizona Republic via AP]
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush answers a question from small business owner Nick Goodman at a town hall meeting at Four Peaks Brewery Thursday in Tempe, Ariz. The likely presidential candidate took a tour of the brewery and then took questions from a crowd of small business owners and others.[Tom Tingle | Arizona Republic via AP]
Published May 15, 2015

TEMPE, Ariz. — After days of refusing to say whether, with the benefit of hindsight, he would have ordered the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Jeb Bush relented Thursday and said he would not have invaded.

"If we're all supposed to answer hypothetical questions, knowing what we know now, what would you have done?" Bush said with a twinge of annoyance while campaigning in Arizona. "I would have not engaged. I would not have gone into Iraq."

It was an answer the former Florida governor and likely Republican candidate for president had refused to give in several public appearances this week, even as most of his GOP rivals did so and criticized him for sidestepping the question.

Bush said Thursday his resistance was caused both by loyalty to his older brother, George W. Bush, who ordered the invasion as president, and to the families of those lost in the decade-long war.

"I don't go out of my way to disagree with my brother," Bush told a group of reporters when asked about the shift. "I am loyal to him."

That loyalty could cast a shadow over Bush's all-but-certain presidential bid, where his family name is both his strongest political asset and liability. He would become the third member of his family to serve as president should he follow his father and brother to the White House.

The Iraq war is among the most defining aspects of George W. Bush's presidency. More than 4,400 U.S. service personnel died, with many more severely wounded, in a war that cost at least $1.7 billion and was justified by faulty intelligence that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. None were found.

The upcoming presidential contest will likely yield other moments when Bush is asked uncomfortable questions about his brother's time in office. Among them: the No Child Left Behind education law and the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina.

Bush said he had not spoken to his brother before talking about Iraq on Thursday, but said the U.S. needs "to re-engage (in Iraq), and do it in a more forceful way." Bush and other Republicans in the presidential mix often argue that President Barack Obama erred by so completely withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq in 2011.

Obama has sent a few thousand troops back into the country to help the Iraqi military fight Islamic State militants, and the next president is sure to face ongoing issues of stability there and elsewhere in the Middle East.

"We can't do this by remote control," Bush said.

Several Republican presidential prospects said definitively they would not have invaded Iraq based on information known today.

They include Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former technology executive Carly Fiorina, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and 2012 presidential candidate Rick Santorum.

Democrats suggested Bush on Thursday was trying to mask his support for the war and distance himself from his brother.

"It's like a sequel to a terrible movie, only worse," Arizona Democratic chairwoman Alexis Tameron said during a conference call. "Most Americans agree the Iraq misadventure was one of the worst foreign policy mistakes of the new century."

A September 2014 AP-GfK poll found that 71 percent of Americans said they think history will judge the war as a failure. Among Republicans, that assessment was even more prevalent, with 76 percent saying the war would be seen a failure.

Bush contended that in 2008, when his brother was preparing to turn over the White House to Obama, Iraq was stable.

"It was fragile, but it was stable," he said, although he added, "Relitigating this and going through hypotheticals does no good for" the families of those soldiers who died.

Bush's troubles began in an interview with Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, which aired Monday.

When he was asked if, knowing what we know now, would he have supported the invasion of Iraq, Bush said: "I would have, and so would have Hillary Clinton, just to remind everybody, and so would have almost everybody that was confronted with the intelligence they got."

A day later, he clarified that he misunderstood the question, and said on the Sean Hannity radio show: "I don't know what that decision would have been, that's a hypothetical. But the simple fact is that mistakes were made."

He then made more statements about it Wednesday:

"Going back in time and talking about hypotheticals — what would have happened, what could have happened, I think, does a disservice for (the families of fallen U.S. troops)."

He also said: "Talking about the future is more than fair. Talking about the past and saying, how would you have done something after the fact is a little tougher. … Of course, given the power of looking back and having that — of course anybody would have made different decisions. There's no denying that. But to delve into that and not focus on the future is where I need to draw the line."

Bush said Thursday that he wants his 2016 campaign to focus on the future, not on his brother — nor their father, George H.W. Bush, also a former president.

"What's the role of America going forward?" he said. "Are we going to pull back now and be defeatist and pessimistic or are we going to engage in a way that creates a more peaceful and secure world? That is what 2016 is about — not about 2000, not about 1992, not about 1980," a reference to the years when his brother and father ran for president.

Information from the Associated Press and Washington Post was used in this report.