On the French TV channel LCI, US’ John Kerry admitted that the Iraq War was based on a lie but refrained from calling it aggression, as President Bush was never directly accused.
A former Vietnam veteran, John Kerry received significant criticism during his failed 2004 presidential run for “being for the [Iraq] war before he was against it.”
The US special ambassador on climate change and former Secretary of State John Kerry recently admitted on French television that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was based on a lie, but refused to admit it was a war of aggression.
Appearing on French TV channel LCI, Kerry insisted the US invasion of Iraq was completely different from the conflict in Ukraine. The French journalist noted the invasion of Iraq was a war of aggression based on lies that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and links to al-Qaeda*.
The crux of Kerry’s argument seems to be that former US President George W. Bush was never charged with a crime.
“No, [it was not a war of aggression],” Kerry replied. “Because there’s never even been, you know, a process of direct accusation of President Bush himself.”
Kerry did not deny there were abuses in Iraq and claimed he “spoke out against them.” However, he repeatedly denied the war was an act of aggression by the United States.
“No, No, No. Well, you didn’t know it was a lie at the time. The evidence that was produced, people didn’t know that it was a lie,” Kerry stammered.
“Sir, that is not a constructive way,” the failed 2004 presidential candidate trailed off before concluding: “I’m not going to re-debate the Iraq War. We have spent a lot of time doing that previously, I was opposed to going in, I thought it was the wrong thing to do, but we gave the president the power, regrettably…. Based on the lie. And when we knew it was a lie, people stood up and did the right thing.”
The Pacific Air Forces Public Affairs has announced that the US has deployed B-52H Stratofortress bombers to Indonesia for the first time.