Rick Perry: I Would Not Have Authorized Iraq Invasion

Texas Governor Rick Perry talks with Texas Tribune CEO and editor in chief Evan Smith at the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin, Texas, on Sunday, Sept. 21, 2014. Perry on Sunday invoked comedian Joan Rivers' death at ... Texas Governor Rick Perry talks with Texas Tribune CEO and editor in chief Evan Smith at the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin, Texas, on Sunday, Sept. 21, 2014. Perry on Sunday invoked comedian Joan Rivers' death at a surgical clinic while defending a law he signed that would close the majority of abortion facilities in Texas. Perry was the keynote speaker on the final day of the festival. (AP Photo/Austin American-Statesman, Deborah Cannon) MORE LESS
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Potential 2016 presidential candidate and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) on Monday said that given what he knows now, he would not have invaded Iraq.

“You know, this whole issue of—this question that gets asked, ‘If you—with what you know today, would you have ordered the invasion of Iraq?'” Perry said at a breakfast event in Iowa, according to the Texas Tribune. “I think if you look what’s happened today, and the answer is no. I mean, with that hindsight, no, I would not have done that.”

Perry’s comments on the Iraq invasion follow former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s (R) difficulty discussing the issue last week.

When asked if he would have invaded Iraq given what he now knows, Bush told Megyn Kelly that he would have authorized the invasion. Bush later said that he misheard the question, and eventually said that he would not have gone into Iraq” given the information available today.

After Bush’s struggle with the question, numerous 2016 contenders weighed in on whether the Iraq invasion was a mistake.

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  1. That’s right, Ricky. But would you have invaded then knowing what you knew THEN.

  2. “I will tell you, it is three countries I would not have invaded: Iraq, Canada, and… Ok… Iraq…Canada… let’s see. I can’t. The third one, I can’t. Sorry. Oops”

  3. “I think if you look what’s happened today, and the answer is no. I mean, with that hindsight, no, I would not have done that.”

    Yet the Republicans continue the slam President Obama, the one guy who was smart enough to think the war was wrong before we went to war.

  4. “Potential 2016 presidential candidate and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry ® on Monday said…”

    …whatever he thinks the polls show is most popular. This fucking twit can’t solve the puzzles on the back of a box of BooBerry and we’re supposed to believe he can reason his way through the morass of blind MIC holy-warring his party ALWAYS relies on when they have the WH? Bullshit. He’d be dancing to the neocon bagpipes before he unscrambled the first 4-letter word on the back of the box during breakfast his first day in office.

  5. Potential 2016 presidential candidate and indicted former Texas Gov. Rick Perry ®…

    Fixed it for you TPM.

    You’re welcome.

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