Deflecting attention from his stumbles last week over whether he would have invaded Iraq, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush placed the blame for the current situation there, and the fall of Ramadi to the Islamic State (ISIS), squarely on President Barack Obama.
Speaking at a business roundtable discussion in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Bush slammed Obama's decision to withdraw 10,000 U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011, saying, "The focus ought to be on knowing what you know now, Mr. President, should you have kept 10,000 troops in Iraq,"
CNN reported.
He said Obama deferred to public opinion in his decision to draw down troops rather than maintain Iraqi stability, and added, "That's what the president did when he abandoned, when he left, Iraq, and I think it was wrong,"
NBC News reported.
He expressed condolences to the families of servicemen killed when the U.S. took Ramadi from al-Qaida forces and said, "They won that battle, and it was hard-fought, and that stability now has been lost."
He told those at the meeting, "ISIS didn't exist when my brother was president. Al-Qaida 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," CNN reported.
Troops were removed from Iraq over a disagreement about granting U.S. troops immunity for crimes committed there, but Bush told the group, "[Obama] could have kept the troops in, and he could have had an agreement. This was a policy decision, not some legal decision.
"The U.S. 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, but it was a decision made based on a campaign promise, based on conditions in Iraq at the time, and I think we’re now paying a price for it," the
Washington Post reported.
Bush expressed his desire to "take out" ISIS, and said that if elected president he would do so.
"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," CNN reported.
Meanwhile, he said the Obama administration had "no strategic imperative" to restore Iraqi stability.
Bush is expected to announce his candidacy for the 2016 Republican nomination, and his likely Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, who supported the U.S. entry into Iraq, recently said, "I made it very clear that I made a mistake, plain and simple. What we now see is a very different and dangerous situation,"
The Week reported.
As to whether his week of difficulties over the Iraq question caused problems in his family, Bush told the group, "It got bumpy, but all is well now. The ship is stable," CNN reported.
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