The 2003 ground invasion of Iraq was not a mistake, according Sen. Lindsey Graham.
Graham, R-S.C., became the latest potential presidential candidate to answer the latest hypothetical Republicans have been bombarded with as of late: Whether they would still invade Iraq if they knew then that it did not have weapons of mass destruction.
“No. I don’t think so. I think at the end of the day, if I know…then what I know now, a land invasion may not have been the right answer,” Graham said when asked on CNN if the Iraq war was a mistake. “But Saddam Hussein was firing at American planes patrolling Iraqi skies under international law. He was denying U.N. weapons inspectors access to sites where we thought there would be weapons of mass destruction. He was killing his own people.”
Graham said the biggest mistake when it comes to Iraq was committed by President Obama, who he blamed for instability in both Iraq and Syria.
“Leaving Iraq without a follow-on force against sound military advice,” he said. “At the end of the day, I blame President Obama for the mess in Iraq and Syria, not President Bush.”
Graham said ground troops need to be part of the answer to solving the problem, a solution that only a few members have hinted at over the last year.
“We’re going to have to send some of our troops back over there to partner with Iraqis and Arab armies to make sure these radical islamists don’t hit us here at home. There is no easy way forward. There is no way to win the war without some of us being over there doing the fighting so they don’t hit us here at home,” Graham said, adding that “about 10,000 troops” are needed in Iraq.
Graham, who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, is set to launch his presidential campaign June 1.
