Bush’s brother blames crisis in Iraq on Obama

Presumed US Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush, brother of former US President George W. Bush, has criticized President Barack Obama’s Iraq policy.

The former Florida governor was at a business meeting in the state of New Hampshire on Wednesday to defend his brother’s invasion of Iraq in 2003.

He reportedly said that the 2003 invasion and occupation created stability in Iraq, until Obama seized the White House, adding that the opposite happened due to Obama’s policies.

"The focus ought to be on knowing what you know now, Mr. President, should you have kept 10,000 troops in Iraq?" said Bush.

In December 2011, Washington withdrew its troops from Iraq as part of the so-called SOFA agreement signed by Baghdad and Washington.

The US invaded Iraq in March 2003 under the pretext of destroying alleged weapons of mass destruction (WMD) belonging to former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

However, it was later found that the country did not possess any WMDs at the time and that the US and Britain, which led the invasion, were well-aware of the non-existence of such weapons in Iraq, but took military action against the oil-rich nation anyway.

Bush’s brother, Jeb, the man who is expected to announce his bid for the upcoming 2016 presidential election, stated that Obama "could have kept the troops in Iraq and he could have had an agreement," and "the United States had enough influence to be able to deal with the immunity issue."

"He made the decision to get out. I don't begrudge him that. It was a decision made based on a campaign promise,” Jeb Bush noted.

"It wasn't based on conditions in Iraq at the time and I think we're paying a price for it,” he added.

Lately, Bush has been under criticism for defending his brother’s legacy in Iraq as many accuse his brother of being the reason for ISIL’s existence today.

ISIL is the terrorist group that controls a territory between Syria and Iraq spanning the size of the United Kingdom.

"ISIS didn't exist when my brother was President. Al-Qaeda in Iraq was wiped out when my brother was President. "There were mistakes made in Iraq, for sure, but the surge created a fragile but stable Iraq that the President could've built on and it would've not allowed ISIS,” he assessed.

When asked by an attendant at the meeting if he would send in more troops into Iraq he said, "We have ground troops in Iraq. I would take the best advice that you could get from the military. Make the decisions based on conditions on the ground, not for some political purpose. Whether we need more than 3,000 -- which is what we have now -- I would base that on what the military advisers say."

In an interview with Fox News that was aired earlier this month, the former Florida governor admitted that he would have repeated the mistake of George W. Bush.

“I would have [authorized the invasion], and so would have [Democratic presidential contender] Hillary Clinton, just to remind everybody. And so would almost everybody that was confronted with the intelligence they got,” he said.

HDS/GJH

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