Trump: supported Iraq invasion
On Wednesday night Trump and Hillary Clinton each appeared in New York at the ‘Commander in Chief Forum’ at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum. The two candidates took turns, by a coin toss Clinton went first, answering questions from host Matt Lauer and veterans of the U.S. military, on issues of national security and foreign policy.
Trump’s bald-faced lie came when he said he had not supported the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. He did in fact support it, as a quote from him in a radio interview with Howard Stern at that time shows.
Stern asked Trump if he supported the impending invasion and Trump responded by saying, “Yeah, I guess so.” He added it was too bad they couldn’t have done it right the first time —when George Bush Sr. invaded Iraq in 1990.
There is no interview or broadcast, nothing in print, of Trump saying anything against George W. Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq until almost two years after U.S. troops had gone into the country. News organizations have tried to find earlier examples of his being critical of invading Iraq and could not — and Trump and his campaign have been asked to produce such evidence, and have not.
Trump: helped create ISIS?
Also on Wednesday at the forum, Trump stated the foreign policy of President Barack Obama and of Clinton were, to quote him directly, “the dumbest foreign policy.” In the past he has claimed the biggest mistake Obama made was to take U.S. troops out of Iraq, which he said lead to the creation of ISIS.
ISIS, however, began after the invasion of Iraq by Bush Jr. and grew out of Al Qaeda. Further, contracts regarding U.S. troops leaving Iraq were signed before 2008 when Obama took office.
And finally, while he has strongly criticized bringing the troops home and insisted it created ISIS, just as with the Iraq war, Trump in fact supported it at the time.
“You know how they get out?” he told CNN’s Wolf Blizter in 2007. “They get out. That’s how they get out. Declare victory and leave. Because I’ll tell you, this country is just going to get further bogged down.”
It appears Trump is now getting bogged down — in a web of lies.
