Jeb Bush's new Iraq strategy: Blame Obama

Jeb Bush is back on offense against President Barack Obama’s strategy in Iraq, following a difficult week in which the likely presidential candidate struggled to clean up his answer on whether he would have invaded Iraq knowing what he knows now.

“It got a little bumpy, but all is well now,” Bush said at a roundtable event in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on Wednesday. “The ship is stable.”


Perhaps a better focus, Bush posited, is “Knowing what we know now, Mr. President, should you have kept 10,000 troops in Iraq?”

Bush said that Obama “abandoned” Iraq and lamented the fall of Ramadi to Islamic State terrorists, saying that “ISIS didn’t exist when my brother was president” and that Al Qaeda was decimated under his brother.

“You think about the family members who lost — our blood and treasure’s in Ramadi, and they won, they won that battle,” he said. “It was hard-fought and that stability has been lost.”

Asked about Bush’s Iraq comments on Thursday, White House spokesman Joshua Earnest said reporters were “missing the point.”

“We know that ISIL was an outgrowth of Al Qaeda in Iraq that did not exist prior to the fateful decision by the previous administration to launch an invasion in Iraq,” Earnest said.

The former Florida governor also reiterated that he loves his family, but that he is a different man than his brother and father, the 43rd and 41st presidents, respectively.

“I love my mom and dad, I love my brother, and people are going to have just get over that,” he said to applause.