Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is looking to capitalize on former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s contradictory statements on the Iraq War.
Bush stumbled this week when asked whether he would have invaded Iraq, as authorized by President George W. Bush, if he knew that weapons of mass destruction did not exist. After answering that he would invade Iraq regardless, Bush altered his answer in a matter of days to “I would not have gone into Iraq.”
Walker, who is headed to the Wisconsin GOP convention this weekend, told the Washington Post he would not have gone into Iraq either. Here is Walker’s answer:
Any president would have likely taken the same action [President George W.] Bush did with the information he had, even Hillary Clinton voted for it, but knowing what we know now, we should not have gone into Iraq. President Bush deserves enormous credit for ordering the surge, a courageous move that worked. Unfortunately, President Obama and Secretary Clinton hastily withdrew our troops, threw away the gains of the surge, and embarked on a broader policy of pivoting away from the Middle East and leading from behind that has created chaos in the region.
On Thursday, Walker returned from a “listening tour” of Israel, where he met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and avoided meeting with potential donors. The Republican Jewish Coalition and Walker’s political group, Our American Revival, paid for the trip. Walker’s group has just hired Andrew Bremberg, a top aide of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, as its policy director, a Walker spokesman has confirmed. Bremberg was responsible for identifying and vetting potential Republican candidates for bipartisan commissions and boards for positions across the federal government while working for McConnell.
He previously worked as a top Health and Human Services Department official in President George W. Bush’s administration. National Affairs editor Yuval Levin has spoken highly of his colleague’s work in the Bush administration, and wrote in 2012 that Bremberg “was a staunch and able champion of the pro-life cause in the Bush administration’s HHS — one of those few and wonderful people for the sake of whom pro-lifers grit their teeth and vote for Republicans.”
