Jeb Bush: Deposing Saddam Hussein was a ‘pretty good deal’

Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush on Thursday said deposing Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein turned out to be a “pretty good deal,” defending one result of the Iraq War.

During a forum in Iowa, Bush was asked whether the U.S. would have to deal with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) if Iraq had never been invaded.

“Who knows? That’s just such a complicated hypothetical. Who knows? I can’t answer that,” Bush said of the war begun by his brother, then-President George W. Bush.

{mosads}”I’ll tell you, though, that taking out Saddam Hussein turned out to be a pretty good deal,” he added.

The former Florida governor also praised the 2007 surge in troops as “an extraordinarily effective” strategy and described his brother as courageous, according to The Washington Post.

Bush’s comments defending his brother come two days after a major foreign policy speech that placed blame for current problems in Iraq on the Obama administration, accusing the president of pulling U.S. troops out too quickly.

Bush said Tuesday that President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, now a Democratic presidential candidate, “opposed the surge, then joined in claiming credit for its success, then stood by as that hard-won victory by American and allied forces was thrown away.”

After reports on Bush’s remarks, aides pointed out that Obama once remarked that Hussein being “gone is a good thing.”

The GOP candidate has attempted to walk a fine line showing support for his brother and father, both former presidents, while also claiming he would carry out his own views on foreign policy. But he has stumbled previously over questions about the Iraq War.

Jeb Bush has said he will be his “own man” on foreign policy, even as Democrats seek to tie him to many unpopular policies of his brother.

“In Florida, they called me Jeb, because I earned it,” Jeb Bush said during the first Republican debate last week. 

– Updated at 8:00 p.m.