Even Jeb Bush looks surprised by his own comments (Picture: Getty)

In his bid to become the 45th president of the United States, and the third member of his family to take the White House hot seat, Jeb Bush has some convincing to do.

With Donald Trump currently leading the opinion polls in the Republican camp, Bush has been trying to get his campaign going with some discussion on foreign policy in a bid to come across as a statesmanlike commander-in-chief in waiting.

Speaking at a national security forum in Iowa on Thursday, Bush said that the Iraq "mission was accomplished" when his brother George W left office in 2009.

Taking out Saddam Hussein turned out to be a pretty good deal.

An actual quote from Jeb Bush

Picture: Getty

According to Politico, Bush did admit that "people have every right to be critical of decisions that were made," but ultimately, Iraq was "fragile but secure" when Barack Obama came to power.

Perhaps his reference to "decisions that were made" involve invading the country on a false premise, losing thousands of US and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives and leaving the nation in a state of turmoil which eventually led to the rise of Isis? The one that has been described as the "worst foreign policy mistake in US history" on more than one occasion?

Bush has flip-flopped on his brother's foreign policy legacy in the past, notably changing his mind four times in a week when he was asked whether he would have invaded Iraq in 2003.

Earlier this week, he blamed Clinton for the state of the country, now it's Obama's fault.

At the security forum in Iowa, he also refused to rule the use of torture if he came to power, saying: "I don’t want to make a definitive, blanket kind of statement."