Posted on 02/19/2016 6:35:00 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Six days ago in South Carolina, Donald Trump blasted George W. Bush for invading Iraq, claiming that he had opposed the war all along. When pressed for specific instances of public opposition to the war, Trump insisted that he had made his feelings known to people he knew at the time, but that since he wasn’t involved in politics at the time, those conversations were never recorded for posterity. Buzzfeed’s Andrew Kaczynski managed to find one recording from the first anniversary of 9/11 in 2002, and Trump had a very different take on the Iraq war than he now claims:
But in a 2002 interview with Howard Stern, Donald Trump said he supported an Iraq invasion. In the interview, which took place on Sept. 11, 2002, Stern asked Trump directly if he was for invading Iraq.
"Yeah I guess so," Trump responded. "I wish the first time it was done correctly."
Kaczynski also found a passage in a book Trump wrote in 2000 in which he demanded a “principled and tough” policy applied to rogue states, including Iraq. In that passage, he alludes to the same dissatisfaction with the conclusion of the 1991 Gulf War. "But the fact is, if we decide a strike against Iraq is necessary, it is madness not to carry the mission to its conclusion,” Trump wrote. “When we don't, we have the worst of all worlds: Iraq remains a threat, and now has more incentive than ever to attack us."
That was a common criticism of the US policy on Iraq at the time — on the Right, which wanted a conclusion that would have removed Saddam Hussein altogether. That also contradicts another Trump statement, in which he credited George H. W. Bush for his limited intervention.
This story broke while CNN conducted a townhall event with Trump as one of the participants. Anderson Cooper challenged Trump with his 2002 quotes, and Trump responded by saying he may have been for the invasion before it happened, but he opposed it afterward:
COOPER: Again, continuing. I literally was just handed this. There’s a report now out tonight on Buzzfeed that includes – I have not heard it – includes an audio clip of what appears to be you on Howard Stern talking on the radio on September 11th, 2002. He asked you are you for invading Iraq? You said yeah, I guess so. You know, I wish the first time it was done correctly. Is that accurate? Do you remember saying that?
TRUMP: No. But, I mean, I could – I could have said that. Nobody asked me – I wasn’t a politician. It was probably the first time anybody asked me that question.
COOPER: But does that…
TRUMP: But by the time the war started – that was quite a bit before the war started.
COOPER: Yeah, this was 2002.
TRUMP: By the time the war started, I was against the war. And there are articles – I mean, there are headlines in 2003, 2004 that I was totally against the war. And actually, a couple of people in your world in terms of the pundits, said, you know, there’ definite proof in 2003, 2004 Trump was against it.
COOPER: But 2004, the Reuters article, which you pointed to a lot, and there were a couple of comments you made, I think, at a Vanity Fair party and one other comment. Those were, I think, a couple of weeks after the war began.
TRUMP: Which is OK. A lot of people said – you know, it was so early that even if it was a little bit after the war, I mean, he was totally against the war. I was very much against it. That was probably the first time I was ever even asked about the war.
This is a strange answer. “I guess so” isn’t exactly passionate support, but it’s clear that Trump didn’t oppose it before the war started. By September 2002, Congress had begun debating the AUMF that would allow Bush to launch an invasion of Iraq, so it was hardly an esoteric topic at that moment, and one would think especially for New Yorkers. Trump would hardly be alone in the category of people who supported the war initially and then changed their minds later, but that’s not what Trump claimed on Saturday. He claimed that he’d always been opposed to it as a way of presenting his judgment as superior to both Jeb and George Bush. It’s not just a flip-flop, it’s a deliberate misrepresentation. At the very least, it demonstrates an appallingly facile approach to policy even when it is most consequential.
Under normal circumstances, this kind of revelation would damage a politician. These aren’t normal circumstances, however. Trump is giving vent to widespread anger and frustration over the collapse of the Iraq project, even if he’s aiming at the wrong president for that issue. September 2002 won’t be relevant to most of those voters.
So you're saying that in order for Iraq to have a chance at success after Saddam, the Baathist's (Saddam supporters) should have been allowed to remain in the military and police forces?
I'm curious, you, as a Trump supporter; Are you not calling for Trump to remove any vestige of socialists, communists, liberals, etc. from our government in order for the US to have a chance at rectifying the damage done by them?
We saw how well that worked out when President Bush kept some of the Clinton cronies and liberals in place...
No he flat out claimed in the last debate he was against it from the start and told everyone it was a bad idea. The man is a liar. He will say whatever his audience wants the hear and claim that is what he always believed.
Listening to him off-script he sounds like an idiot. I will do great things. ____ will be fabulous. We will have the best ____. It sounds like he has no idea at all but he will make whatever great.
Build a wall.
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You know, I assume to get your conservative membership card a conservative has had to have watch the movie Patton once in their life and gotten a life lesson from it.
If keeping God cursed Nazis in critical jobs was good enough for Patton (most of which joined the party to get a job) then keeping the Ba'athists in their jobs to help with the occupation is preferable then the rise of Shia political parties that were owned by Iraq.
And this is why people who think like you and the candidates who they support need never come close to holding power again.
Trump 2016!
So, trump talks from the both sides of his mouth. And blows hot air from all ends.
He is a deal-maker. Having consistent, principled stance is NOT his thing. He cannot be trusted.
Only TrusTED!
Please read my comment was about those pieces of Shiite that you illustrated with. Nothing more then.
But I didn’t support Iraq war 2 as Iraq was at the time not an aggressor. We needed to finish Afghanistan. North Korea and likely Iran have weapons of mass destruction but we are going to war there. The hijackers and Osama were Saudi but we didn’t invade there either.
RE: likely Iran have weapons of mass destruction but we are going to war there.
There you go, speculating ... where’s your intelligence report?
The fact is there is (and was ) NO CERTAINTY regarding what Saddam had or did not have.
The point is not to argue that the invasion of Iraq was a good decision, the point is to argue that contra-Trump’s insistence in the debate -— BUSH DID NOT KNOW that there were no WMD’s in Iraq.
Just like today -— we DO NOT KNOW whether or not Iran has the bomb or any other WMDs.
Fail on your part, sport.
Didn’t take you but the first sentence to go straight to the personal attack because I had the audacity to question/challenge your statement. So typical of the behavior that is now part of the well worn and tiresome tactic for certain posters on FR. I suppose every good liberal has had to read and study up on Alinsky...
I suppose you don’t understand the tribal loyalties component of that whole system and the fact that the MINORITY were in control of Iraq, subjugating the majority.
Patton kept those who were not considered a risk at undermining the post war efforts in Germany. I’m sure, in your way of thinking, that the Baathists were going to be just as helpful...which has been shown to be demonstrably false. Time and time again, the coalition were betrayed by people in positions of trust and power in Iraq and it cost us American lives.
You have a nice day now.
The Ba'athists were and are bastards but they were multi-confessional secularist bastards.
You folks just can’t help yourselves...
0bama pi$$ed it away, the region was quite secure, without the Baathists.
Like I said before, have a nice day.
Paid operatives? You, who sings up for Free Republic about the same time Donald Trump announces his candidacy and uses the name "Trumpinator" as a handle and who spams the threads making excuses for Donald Trump's inconsistencies and fabrications accusing others of being "paid operatives"?
That's hilarious. I guess it takes one to know one, eh?
How much are you being paid?
I am talking about people who write the articles - clearly. But of you think I am good enough to be a professional then I thank you for the compliment.
Do you get paid by the word or by the post?
All other issues in this election are secondary to immigration.
Do you get paid to regurgitate obvious opposition research as news? Who spent the money to dig through Howard Stern tapes?
“What Trump should have said in the interest of accuracy was the invasion was a mistake”
I wasn’t talking about Trump’s recent statement that Bush lied. I was talking about his earlier statement in support of the war.
For the most part, this seems to be a non-story. He opposed it later than 2002. Big deal.
trump has a way of twisting inconvienient facts. But he really has nothing on some his sychopants here on Free Republic.
This is not vetting its distortion and to me it was done by opposition and fed to hotair so it can be spun in an inaccurate manner.
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