If you didn’t see it, here is the link to the entire transcript of the hour-long interview.
Bush Interview, President Spoke to 60 Minutes’ Scott Pelley At Camp David
Instability in Iraq threatens the entire region?
BUSH: If the government falls apart and there is sectarian enclaves and violence, it’ll invite Iran into the Shia neighborhoods, Sunni extremists into the Sunni neighborhoods, Kurdish separatist movements. All of which would threaten moderate people, moderate governments, and all of which will end up creating conditions that could lead to attacks here in America.
PELLEY: But wasn’t it your administration that created the instability in Iraq?
BUSH: Well, our administration took care of a source of instability in Iraq. Envision a world in which Saddam Hussein was rushing for a nuclear weapon to compete against Iran. My decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the correct decision in my judgment. We didn’t find the weapons we thought we would find or the weapons everybody thought he had. But he was a significant source of instability.
PELLEY: It’s much more unstable now, Mr. President.
BUSH: Well, no question decisions have made things unstable. But the question is can we succeed. And I believe we can.
If anyone is religious, it might not be a bad time to pray for the Country.
/agree with #1 – *also shakes head in disgust*
“Envision a world in which Saddam Hussein was rushing for a nuclear weapon to compete against Iran.”
So he does know, after all, that Saddam was indeed a balance against Iran. Instead of admitting that possibly having toppled Saddam was the reason why Iran is acting so bully, he twists it around and says Iran was the reason he did it!!! How insulting and delusional can this guy be?
#23. Indeed. Saddam was a great instrument for containing Iran which, with genuine WMD programs, an intact economy and powerful military (compare to the illusory WMD programs and sanctions-crippled economy and military of Iraq in 2003), a real threat.
But with Saddam gone and an Iranian-friendly Shiite government in Baghdad, Iranian influence spreads.
I love how the only definitive mistakes he admits to was doing the “bring it on” thing. Insufficient troops to secure the country “could” have been a mistake.
cripes
And how he thinks the real problem with US public opinion is that we think the Iraqis are ungrateful … not that the justifications for the war fell apart or we were fed unrealistic predictions about it being quick, cheap and easy, or anything substantive at all, but just that the Iraqis are ungrateful.
not one ounce of recognition that his PR campaign to get us into the war might now be responsible for public support disappearing.
this guy is still in cloudcookooland. I hope we live to see 2009
I’m not sure what we as a nation did to deserve this President and this administration, but clearly, we are stuck with a very poor situation for the next several years. It’s a salvage operation now. However, the more we can work together, the better it will go. I think we can all agree there is a lack of competence and honesty in the executive branch right now. There should be more interest in finding solutions than flogging the President. History will take care of that for us.
25. I like flogging the president, thank you very much.
The Real Mark
#19 I’m from ohio and it’s embarrassing we were the “decider state” during reelections.
Comment by Todd — 1/15/2007 @ 12:01 pm
How do you think I feel?
I moved from Ohio to Indiana and kept my Ohio registration so I could vote in a swing state. But did that help? I might as well have wasted my vote in Indiana.
Good news… Even Indiana swung a bit to the blue in the last elections.
I will always remember the fantastic presentation Colin Powell made at the UN regarding the WMDs back in 03 – clearly no other nation besides the UK(or Blair) believed in it – That was the tipping point IMO for our loss of credibility around the world.
How many years (decades) is it gonna take to be trusted again?
“There should be more interest in finding solutions than flogging the President. History will take care of that for us.”
Flogging, Last night he said in so many words that he didn’t give a flying fuck what anyone thought of him or his decisions.
Forget it. If you haven’t gotten it by now, you never will!
#25 “I’m not sure what we as a nation did to deserve this President ”
Someone voted for him.
>you were wrong about being greeted as liberators,
You’re right about the rest, but this part happened. Anti-war author Aaron Glantz pinpoints the loss of Iraqi goodwill at a failure to deliver electricity, and trying to shutdown Sadr’s newspaper.
Since when is stability the measure of whether a war is worth fighting? Things were probably more stable without the revolutionary war, or the war in Yugoslavia, and in Iraq. We shouldn’t interfere in Sudan because things will be more stable after they have ethnically cleansed the place. Things will be much more stable if we nuke Somalia.
32, the Whole middle east would be alot nicer If we nuked it…
Only problem comes that there are MORE muslims, NOT in that area, then those that LIVE there.
#33
You are an idiot. We are not at war with Muslims. The president declared war on extreme fundamentalist terrorists. The vast majority of Muslims are not violent people. What you are saying is analogous to wanting to nuke the united states because some fundamentalist Christians blow up federal buildings and assassinate abortion clinic doctors.
The Muslim terrorist finds a legitimate target in ignorant violent people like you.
I was so PO’s when Bush in his last radio address said,
Members of Congress have a right to express their views, and express them forcefully. But those who refuse to give this plan a chance to work have an obligation to offer an alternative that has a better chance for success. To oppose everything while proposing nothing is irresponsible.
Propose nothing!?!?! Uh. Mr. Bush… remember the Baker-Hamilton Report?
The press repeated the Whitehouse talking point that the “surge” is the “last best chance” for Iraq but I think history will say that the Baker-Hamilton plan was that.
It was something that both Dems and GOPs would have gotten behind but Bush just flipped it off. And then, in his snipey frat-boy way, accuses congress of irresponsibly “proposing nothing. ” What a pissant.
#34, tj
You are a blind, idiotic, know nothing, mouth piece for the friggen extremists.
We constantly hear from the loony fringe how much they want to drop nukes on the mid-east, don’t want Muslims in Congress, want to deny Muslims a fair trial even when falsely accused, and generally have only disdain for the entire Muslim world.
I don’t always agree with ECA, but occasionally he does come up with very profound comments, and this is an example. If, as he suggests, the entire Mid-East were nuked then we would not have any sectarian strife to argue over. And the fact that there are a whole lot of Muslims outside the Mid-East is even more important.
#36
“You are a blind, idiotic, know nothing, mouth piece for the friggen extremists.”
I am not a mouth piece for extremists. In fact I was trying to point out that people who want to kill thousands or millions of innocent people are extremists. The vitriolic hatred on both “sides” is what perpetuates the violence.
“We constantly hear from the loony fringe how much they want to drop nukes on the mid-east, don’t want Muslims in Congress, want to deny Muslims a fair trial even when falsely accused, and generally have only disdain for the entire Muslim world.”
I don’t know what you mean here, I think we’re saying the same thing?
“I don’t always agree with ECA, but occasionally he does come up with very profound comments, and this is an example”
There is nothing profound about suggesting that we exterminate people with nuclear weapons, unless you meant to say it was profoundly callus, wrong headed, genocidal. It’s profound in the same way Hitler is profound. Hatred is hatred.
36. You threw me for a loop there. Thats pretty much contrary to anything you ever have said in the past. Please explain.