After former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) clarified last week that he would not have invaded Iraq given what he knows now, Donald Trump said on Monday that he would not have gone into Iraq.
On “Fox and Friends,” co-host Steve Doocy asked Trump about reports that the Islamic State took control of Ramadi in Iraq and whether Trump would call for “boots on the ground” following ISIL’s latest attack.
“Well, I would have never been in Iraq,” Trump answered, according to a clip highlighted by Mediaite.
Co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck later asked Trump if he thinks the U.S. should have left Iraq, given what we know now.
“We shouldn’t have been there, and once we were there, we probably should have stayed,” Trump said. “The Middle East has been totally decapitated. It’s a mess. The balance has been lost between Iraq and Iran.”
Trump then referenced Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who on Sunday struggled to explain whether the decision to invade Iraq was a mistake.
“These characters, like Rubio, made a total fool of himself on Chris Wallace’s program, talking about ‘We’re better off without Saddam Hussein.’ Give me a break,” Trump said. “Right now we have ISIS, which is worse than Saddam Hussein. At least Saddam Hussein did one thing: he killed terrorists. He was very good at killing terrorists.”
Trump noted that Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction.
“We had very bad intelligence. He had none,” he said.
The Donald would never have been in Iraq … except for on funded by $1.5 trillion in oil sales from the very fields Isis now controls lol
‘I would have never been in Iraq’
Men who use a combination of toupee and comb-over rarely go where it is windy.
On 9/12 we had the entire world, minus al Qaida, on our side. Even Yasser Arafat. By not enlisting everybody in sight and asking their advice, and not planning anywhere near adequately the troop numbers needed (Rummy said 75,000 ought to be enough), and not caring about the political or religious complexities of the middles east we now have an epic mess on our hands. And all of the derp filled repub candidates over simplify an increasingly complex situation. Trump hasn’t the 1st clue what is driving extremism or why ISIS followers are so willing to chase the Caliphate fantasy. He’s a real estate “mogul”, not equipped to be POTUS.
He should have made the same observations about his business interests in Atlantic City…
" We had very bad intelligence". Bull shit. The Bush Cheney administration had good intelligence. They intentionally ignored the good intelligence to over throw a leader so US and Britain oil contractors could do business in Iraq. The other motive was a lucrative defense industry counting money.