Jeb Bushs people are trying to walk back his disastrous interview with
Megyn Kelly in which he said that even if he knew then what we all know
now, he would have launched the war on Iraq in 2003.

It is true that he doesnt seem to have been very clear-headed in his
answer. He blamed €œthe intelligence€� for what he said was a consensus of
himself and Hilary Clinton. But the question was not, would you have
trusted intelligence agencies all over again, but rather would you still
do it knowing what we know now. He said he would, even now.

We know now (actually we knew then) that there was no connection between
Iraq and al-Qaeda or the attacks of September 11, 2001, and that Iraq
had no nuclear weapons program.

But even before 9/11, in 1998, Jeb Bush signed the letter of the
so-called €œProject for a new American Century€� trying to pressure Bill
Clinton into an attack on Iraq. The signatories mostly came to power
under W. and more or less made a coup.

The problem with his blaming €œthe intelligence€� is that his brother,
George W., actively disregarded or even dictated the intelligence. That
is why he sourced the phony allegation that Saddam Hussains Iraq
received uranium from the central African country of Niger to €œBritish
intelligence€� in his 2002 State of the Union address. The CIA saw the
same document and thought it was a forgery, and wouldnt sign off on
including it in a State of the Union speech. Moreover, the
€œintelligence€� was being fixed around the policy, as the British head of
MI-6, Sir Richard Dearlove, was disturbed to discover on a visit to
Washington in summer of 2002.