Trump, the Teller of ‘Truths,’ Has a New Tune on Iraq

Donald Trump wants us to believe that he’s always thought invading Iraq was a really bad idea. Channeling his inner Michael Moore, Trump has said that George W. Bush should have been impeached, and at last week’s debate in Charleston he declared, “we never should have been in Iraq.”

Funny. That’s not what Trump believed when he wrote extensively about our Iraq policy in his book, The America We Deserve, co-authored with Dave Shiflett in 2000. Speaking of the first Gulf War in 1991, Trump had nothing but praise for Jeb’s father: “We can learn something here from George Bush and see how good a president he was. He wasn’t afraid to use American power when he figured out that Saddam Hussein posed a direct threat to American interests in the East. I only wish, however, that he had spent three more days and properly finished the job.”

In Charleston and in subsequent interviews, Trump’s views on Iraq and presidents named George Bush have, shall we say, evolved. George W. Bush, according to Trump’s retelling, outright lied in 2003 about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. But like many other observers in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s — including Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, John Kerry, John Edwards, Nancy Pelosi, Madeleine Albright, and the entire U.S. Senate — Trump sounded the alarm about Iraq’s documented efforts to build nuclear weapons. “After each pounding from U.S. warplanes, Iraq has dusted itself off and gone right back to work developing a nuclear arsenal,” Trump wrote critically of the Clinton administration cat-and-mouse policy. “Six years of tough talk and U.S. fireworks in Baghdad have done little to slow Iraq’s crash program to become a nuclear power. They’ve got missiles capable of flying nine hundred kilometers — more than enough to reach Tel Aviv. They’ve got enriched uranium. All they need is the material for nuclear fission to complete the job.”

So what was Trump’s solution back when being tough on dictators was cool? “I’m no warmonger. But the fact is, if we decide a strike against Iraq is necessary, it is madness not to carry the mission to its conclusion. When we don’t, we have the worst of all worlds: Iraq remains a threat, and now has more incentive than ever to attack…To tell the enemy we’re not going to invade defies common sense. It conveys weakness, lack of discipline, incoherence, and a lack of confidence in our objectives.”

Contrary to Trump’s truth-telling self-image, prior to the 2003 invasion he was not a voice crying out in the Iraq policy wilderness. Instead, he solidly backed a mainstream bipartisan consensus that viewed Saddam Hussein as a grave threat, believed he was continuing his quest for nuclear weapons, and was determined to take him out. Trump can change his mind, but he can’t change his history.

Photo Credit: Spencer Platt / Staff