Karl Rove, often described as President George W. Bush’s brain, defended the former president in a new book against claims that he lied to the American public in order to invade Iraq in 2003.
“[D]id Bush lie us into war? Absolutely not,” Rove wrote in his 516-page book, “Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight.”
The book highlights Rove’s life and career and his time working for Bush.
Rove, a long-time political advisor who joined Bush in the White House after the 2000 campaign, said the U.S. wouldn’t have gone to war with Iraq if the administration knew that weapons of mass destruction wouldn’t be found.
“Would the Iraq War have occurred without WMD? I doubt it,” he wrote. “Congress was very unlikely to have supported the use-of-force resolution without the threat of WMD. The Bush administration itself would probably have sought other ways to constrain Saddam, bring about regime change, and deal with Iraq’s horrendous human rights violations.”
Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, Rove argued, may have destroyed most of his WMD stockpiles or possibly moved them to other countries such as Syria before the war.
“But I am under no illusions; the failure to find stockpiles of WMD did great damage to the administration’s credibility,” he wrote. “Our weak response in defense of the president and in setting the record straight, is, I believe, one of the biggest mistakes of the Bush years.”
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Article courtesy cnn.com
