Trump in 2002: "I guess" I'd invade Iraq

Hotair ^ | 02/19/2016 | Ed Morrissey

[SeekAndFind]

RE: In 2004 79% of Americans thought invading Iraq was justified even if no WMD were found.

Well, the fact is — WMD’s were found (unless Chemical weapons, which Saddam used to kill at least 5,000 Kurds, are no longer considered WMD’s )

See here:

http://www.redstate.com/streiff/2016/02/14/donald-trump-dumb-doesnt-know-wmd-found-iraq/

[Trumpinator]

Right on to all you said. I will add that I find it interesting they are trying ti take down Trump not for being against the war but on how early he was against it. So does that mean officially now - being against the war is seen as the smart view to have and thus discredits W?

You would think the opposite would be the truth for a GOP candidate - that being against the war is what should sink Trump rather than boosting him at the polls.

So subliminally, the GOpe still loses going after Trump on being anti war and being against W and the Bushes.

[nclaurel]

I fully understand your position and dislike of Trump but don’t throw 2 self serving idiots like Clinton and Kerry in to discussion. No normal person is impressed by either.

[Trumpinator]

Bush stated the reason for the war was to get a revived WMD program.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: I fully understand your position and dislike of Trump but don’t throw 2 self serving idiots like Clinton and Kerry in to discussion.

I could also include the other Democrats ( e.g. John Edwards, Chuck Schumer, Joe Biden, etc. ) in the mix.... my point is — if even Democrats, who wanted to see Bush fail and would stoop to low levels to see him fall at every turn, VOTED and SUPPORTED the invasion looking at the same intelligence data — in what way is it Bush’s decision alone?

In what way did Bush KNOW IN ADVANCE that there were no WMD’s? What other data can he rely on than the intelligence reports he was given?

And BTW, we now know that there were WMD’s found (unless Chemical weapons, which Saddam used to kill at least 5,000 Kurds are no longer considered WMD’s)

[xzins]

Yep, everybody is mad at Trump for being against the war?

Hardly. They have decided that the party line is ‘the war was bad’. They even had to beat it out of a confounded Jeb after his Megyn Kelly interview. The poor boy didn’t know which direction was up. He finally — laughably — decided his brother was WRONG. LOL.

So, the right answer is “the war was misguided and being against it is good.”

Trump said they only recently came to that position. He had it from the outset.

And they hate that. It’s admitting to themselves, I suppose, that they were fooled.

[Carry_Okie]

Hypotheticals and early assessments are interesting over a good scotch, but what does a candidate say they will do now on todays burning issues?

If Trump is willing to tell a flaming lie about his past for political gain, what does that tell you about his promises on every other issue?

[SeekAndFind]

One of the many jobs a president has, when it comes to safeguarding the people who elected him, is identifying and removing risks to his country. Iraq, under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, and his sons, was a huge source of risk to regional and world peace. Here are some specific reasons why; I’ve boldfaced the “bullet quotes” that you can throw into an argument:

• Hussein was a nut. So were his sons. You can’t reason with a nutcase. The Soviets were evil but rational. Hussein was too nutty to be reasoned with.
• Hussein was willing to set the whole Middle East on fire, if it suited his purposes. In the First Gulf War, when the Allied coalition bombed him, Hussein retaliated by rocketing—Israel, a country that wasn’t in the coalition at all.
• In the years leading up to the Second Gulf War, the international will to restrain Hussein was collapsing. UN sanctions were eroding. Fewer and fewer countries were willing to hold Hussein’s feet to the fire. Soon, only the US (and perhaps the UK), would be carrying the burden of keeping Iraq in check. We were going to be in Iraq’s crosshairs sooner or later—it was inevitable.
• Hussein had plenty of ways to challenge, or even imperil, the US or its allies. He could rocket Israel. His armies could maneuver menacingly on the Saudi and Kuwaiti borders. (Remember, the Second Gulf War occurred before the fracking boom, when the Middle East was still invaluable as a source of oil). He could fund terrorists. His scientists could give WMD (nuke, chem or bio) to rogue regimes or terrorists.
• Hussein was not going to leave Israel alone. He saw it as the West’s new testicle, just as Khruschev saw and used Berlin as the West’s testicle during the Cold War. As long as Hussein was in power, we’d always have to be holding our breath, waiting for the next time Hussein squeezed on Israel. (If you’re talking with someone who doesn’t give a hoot about Israel, I doubt this point will help you much.)
• In 2002-3, the Middle East was still a vital, irreplaceable source of oil for the world economy. This is worth its own bullet point. The world wasn’t fracking yet. Many of our trading partners depended on ready access to Middle Eastern oil to run their economies. If they suffered economically, so would we. You may dislike, or even hate, the Saudi monarchy. But you can’t put hate or dislike in your gas tank. The free flow of oil was another testicle that Hussein could squeeze. (Okay…enough of that metaphor)

As for the decision to invade Iraq, because he posed a WMD threat:

• In 2002-3, did ANY respectable US politician or world leader really think that Hussein DIDN’T pose a WMD threat? Here is a link to an Instapundit post, where Glenn Reynolds has collected a LONG list of Democrat pols talking about how threatening Saddam Hussein was.
• Could we really afford to wait for 100% proof that Hussein had WMD? We didn’t have 100% proof that 9/11 was a terrorist attack until the second plane hit the WTC. By then, once we actually were 100% sure that we were under a no-fooling terrorist attack…three World Trade Center towers and 3000+ Americans were dead or doomed. Here is one place where I fault the Bush 43 administration: Many of its critics fault the Bush 43 administration for not making sure that Iraq had WMD before we invaded. But, that sets the decision bar unfairly high. NO president can ever count on having undeniable, irrefutable proof of a threat before acting to counter it. Bush 43 should have made that more clear to the American people. The question shouldn’t have been “Are we sure that Hussein has WMD.” The question should have been “Are we sure he DOESN’T have it, and can’t get it?” The only way that Bush 43 could have responsibly run the risk of not neutralizing Hussein, is if he could be 100% sure that Hussein didn’t have WMD and couldn’t get them. Otherwise, Hussein was too nutty and too dangerous to simply try to contain with sanctions and monitoring. He was too much of a risk.
• Once your enemy knows you’re coming to get him, you don’t give him time to dig in and get ready. In the weeks immediately preceding the Iraq invasion in early 2003, I remember news reports about calls for a few more months of negotiation, to see if there was even the slightest chance that Hussein would bow to world pressure and allow the creation of some mechanism that would really ensure that he didn’t have WMD and wouldn’t get them. Hussein would never have allowed that. But, he could have strung out the diplomats and the press by hinting that he might. In the meantime, his troops could dig in. He could lay boobytraps that would have made Pelilieu look like a walk in the park. Then, our troops would have been forced to attack later in the year, when it was much hotter and Hussein was much better prepared. Maybe it’s just me, but I want a president who makes things as easy as possible for OUR troops, instead of the enemy’s.
• Here’s another good source of evidence for why the decision to invade is justifiable

It was too risky to try and coexist with Hussein. And, we had the ability to take him out.

FINALLY -- CONTRA-TRUMP -- THERE WAS NO CERTAIN KNOWLEDGE THAT SADDAM HUSSEIN HAD NO WMDs.

[GeaugaRepublican]

PING.

For a media saavy guy Donald Trump went against the grain of most Americans and spoke out against the war. who the hell made a statement against the war 5 days into it?

Here is an article written a few weeks before Trump criticized the war.

Interestingly another time that Murdoch and Trump did not see eye to eye.

Trump felt it was bad for America...Murdoch knew it was good for his business. Murdoch used his vast worldwide media to support Bush and the war.

From the Guardian....
Murdoch is chairman and chief executive of News Corp which owns more than 175 titles on three continents, publishes 40 million papers a week and dominates the newspaper markets in Britain, Australia and New Zealand. His television reach is greater still, but broadcasting - even when less regulated than in Britain - is not so plainly partisan. It is newspapers which set the agenda.

It isn’t always clear exactly what Murdoch believes on any given issue, but this time we know for certain, courtesy of an interview in the Australian magazine, the Bulletin (which, by the way, he doesn’t own). To cite the report of that interview in Murdoch’s own Sydney Daily Telegraph, the “media magnate...has backed President Bush’s stance against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein”. Indeed, his quotes are specific. “We can’t back down now, where you hand over the whole of the Middle East to Saddam...I think Bush is acting very morally, very correctly, and I think he is going to go on with it”. Then came words of praise for Tony Blair. “I think Tony is being extraordinarily courageous and strong... It’s not easy to do that living in a party which is largely composed of people who have a knee-jerk anti-Americanism and are sort of pacifist. But he’s shown great guts as he did, I think, in Kosovo and various problems in the old Yugoslavia.”

Most revealing of all was Murdoch’s reference to the rationale for going to war, blatantly using the o-word. Politicians in the United States and Britain have strenuously denied the significance of oil, but Murdoch wasn’t so reticent. He believes that deposing the Iraqi leader would lead to cheaper oil. “The greatest thing to come out of this for the world economy...would be $20 a barrel for oil. That’s bigger than any tax cut in any country.”

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2003/feb/17/mondaymediasection.iraq

[Carry_Okie]

ll the Cruz campaign can do is search out comments from decades ago to make his arguments. His only campaign tactic is to keep trying to paint Trump as a liberal even though these snippets don't represent who Trump is.

Yes they do: He's a flaming liar who will say anything to win and then change his position and forget his promises, every one of which has weasel words in them.

[Trumpinator]

FINALLY -- CONTRA-TRUMP -- THERE WAS NO CERTAIN KNOWLEDGE THAT SADDAM HUSSEIN HAD NO WMDs.

------

Trump is saying his analysis of info that W would have been better. I won't say W lied but I will say his thinking process led to the wrong conclusion and to the wrong solution.

Was there an alternative to invasion? A palace coup? Allowing a friendly regime to welcome American WMD inspections for example? Who knows - roads not taken and all that.

But even taking the WMD aside - the whole Bush admin occupation was a fiasco - including firing the old Iraqi army and police. Having no WMD is forgivable if the occupation went well. If the occupation went badly, at least we can say we got the WMD for all that blood and treasure spilled. But we can't even say that.

[Religion and Politics]

How old was Trump's claim that Bush invaded Iraq under false pretenses, that he KNEW there were no WMD's but invaded anyway?

I think the "false pretenses" were more that we were somehow imminently threatened by the "WMD" and therefore needed to take Saddam out. There was no real immediate threat which justified a military invasion and we probably knew that, or in the least, we should have known that which gives rise to the notion that we did know that.

The WMD claim seems now to have been supportive of a larger policy GW was intent on doing. The WMD issue was more like a "search warrant", and not the reason for invading. In retrospect, how could it be so wrong to say Iraq was largely about oil and about regime change?

I was all for it then, but I started doubting when Paul Bremmer didn't pull off the miracle that GW said was going to happen after "winning the war". Remember the money giveaways? So disappointing.

Regime change as a policy initiative hasn't worked out so well in the Middle East. We were supposed to get a domino effect of representative governments, and instead we have gotten Sharia.

[zedee]

Your ears are not lying to you it is just that your ears are just retarded/learning disabled. Trump's "I guess" is not a ringing endorsement for a war - which was like 6 months into the future and not even something seen as about to happen.

I don't know where you were in 2002, but at the time Trump made this comment, the possibility of invading Iraq was a YUGE topic of conversation, within Congress, in the media and among the general public. It wasn't just some hypothetical question that Stern pulled from out of nowhere.

[GeaugaRepublican]

The Woodward Book “Plan of Attack: The Definitive Account of the Decision to Invade Iraq” and Woodward’s research was completed 18 month before the Downing Street Memo which is seen as the “smoking gun” and ultimately the reason for further review of the Bush policy to go to war.

That is a fact.

[Trumpinator]

I think to the blue collar voter the Howard Stern tapes are a pro Trump marketing tool.

[Trumpinator]

The same information Bush received from the Clinton administration. WMD went to Syria with the help of the Russians while Russia was stalling the invasion for three months at the UN.

----

http://www.wired.com/2012/07/syria-iraq-wmd-meme/

No, Syria Doesn’t Have Saddam’s Chemical Weapons

[Trumpinator]

Per xzins' words:

Stern gets an obviously hesitant response to his question, do you support going to war against Iraq. Trump says, “I....guess...so...but they should have fought it correctly the first time.”

That is obviously not a glaring endorsement of going to war. In the intervening 6 months his attitude did not become MORE supportive. It became less supportive. He objected to the way it was being fought in 2003 and called it a mess.

Trump's "being against the war" opinion solidified and became even more prescient as we approached the war when others became more pro war and proven by history to have been in error and showed poor judgment.

[mac_truck]

It wasn't just some hypothetical question that Stern pulled from out of nowhere.

Considering that interview took place on the one year anniversary of 9/11, you're right...but Trump's reluctance to go to war was quite evident even then.

[Hostage]

Esquire 2004 cover “How I’d Run The Country Better”, interview.
2004 interview on Larry King
2004 Reuters Headline “Donald Trump Would ‘Fire’ Bush Over Iraq Invasion”

Timeline
2002 War hadn’t started, didn’t know much, “I guess, maybe ...”
2003 Starts to turn against the war
2004 Solidly against the war

...

2016 Moronic media tries yet again to frame Trump as a liar on Iraq war

http://www.thicktoast.com/was-trump-against-iraq-war-in-2003-the-truth-is-shocking

http://www.rense.com/general54/bushs.htm

It’a amazing there are so many media losers that do a cursory search of DT’s claim, find nothing and immediately conclude he lied. If there is even one media outlet in 2003 or 2004 where he is against the war, it’s a near certainty that all the other tabloids that followed Trump as a celebrity would have headlines or captioned his opposition to the war.

Just so you know, not that it will do any good, the claim that DT made about Muslims celebrating in NJ about 9-11 was eventually confirmed by a VHS recording of a local newscast taken at the time, but not after the media morons jumped on the smear campaign against Trump. It didn’t work then, it won’t work in this case either.

[Kenny]

Again with the lies. What promises has Trump every forgotten, for that matter what promises has he made?

Trump built an empire on his word, he’s famous for it. Cruz on the other hand flipped on amnesty, TPA, and whatever else his donors need. Cruz also lied on his forms when he omitted low interest loans from major Wall Street banks from his financials.

And Cruz is foisting the biggest deceit of all on his supporters because he’s not qualified to serve as President. His blinding ambition makes him think he can pull an Obama and ride it out but the Dems will nail him and he won’t be able to slither away.