'Former United States President George W Bush has decried the “wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq” in a gaffe during a speech in the US state of Texas.
The former president, who launched the 2003 invasion of Iraq under the false pretence that the country was developing weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), meant to decry the Russian invasion of Ukraine during the speech in Dallas on Wednesday.
Instead, while criticising Russia’s political system, he said: “The result is an absence of checks and balances in Russia, and the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq.
“I mean, of Ukraine,” he said quickly.
He then said “Iraq too”..
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The US invasion of Iraq, which was officially completed in 2011, has been directly attributed to widespread instability in the country that led to the rise of the ISIL (ISIS) armed group.
The UK-based Iraq Body Count Project has recorded as many as 209,422 violent civilian deaths in Iraq since the March 2003 US invasion.
When the initial invasion began, the International Commission on Jurists in Geneva said it represented a “war of aggression” that constituted a crime under international law.
In 2010, a Dutch inquiry, the first-ever independent legal assessment of the war, determined the invasion had “no basis in international law”.
A year later, the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission found Bush and former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair guilty of crimes against humanity for the war. The verdict was not enforceable.
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Former Guantanamo Bay detention centre prisoner Moazzam Begg noted he gave testimony at the Kuala Lumpur tribunal alongside former prisoners tortured by US forces at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
“Bush and his acolytes were found guilty in absentia of war crimes and crimes against humanity,” he tweeted. “No joke.” '
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‘Freudian slip’: Bush decries ‘invasion of Iraq’ – not Ukraine, May 19, 2022
Context(The U.S. out of the Middle East) - Why Are American Troops Still in Iraq? - '..the case for leaving Iraq is even stronger.'Veterans groups .. in favor of winding down American military involvement in the Middle East