BTW, I don’t have a problem answering the question that Jeb Bush bungled. Not only do I think that knowing what we know now we should not have invaded Iraq, I thought that knowing what we knew then we should not have invaded and everything that has happened since has supported the views I expressed at the time. It’s not a difficult question to answer, requiring fine discrimination and careful judgment.
Why is it that in mitigating risks we always take the most violent of available strategies? I don’t think it’s for pragmatic reasons but for political ones.
A more violent strategy would have been to send a few nukes to Mecca and Medina, and then, send anybody, in the US, with any Saudi heritage to internment camps. The 9/11 hijackers were mostly Saudi’s.
A better question would be: If the intel had been 100% correct and 100% proven, would you still have invaded Iraq?
If so, why, and please, support your reasons with concrete examples. If you posit that Saddam would have given WMD to terrorists, please provide an example(s) of a similar occurrence, and the similar occurrence must be of the same scale. Giving a vial of plutonium isotope for an assassination does not equate to giving a nuclear device.
I am going to assume the people who were against the invasion would still be against it. If not, why?
This highlights a problem I have with Jeb Bush running. Taken in isolation I think he’s a viable candidate, but here is a case where think he tried, and failed, to have it both ways – not criticize his brother yet distance himself from the fiasco that is OIF.