Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) blamed President George W. Bush’s 2003 Iraq War for the chaos in Syria, Iraq and the surrounding countries of the Middle East.
When asked why “this our fight,” Reed answered, “This became our fight in 2002-2003 when we decided to preemptively take out the Iraqi government.”
When host Chuck Todd pressed by asking, “Whether you agree with the Iraq war or not, you do you believe the United States government has a responsibility to basically put the Middle East back together?”
Reed said, “We have the consequences of that decision, which I opposed. Those consequences are destabilize counties in Iraq, to a degree, Syria. A lot of this is flowing from that decision. We have to do this in our own self-interest. We’re doing this to help countries, but ultimately it is about protecting ourselves. We don’t want radicalized, well-trained individuals coming back from Iraq or Syria and attacking the United States. We don’t want other countries that are allies are being subjected to this pressure. But the fight ultimately has to be theirs. The fight ultimately is as much about the politics of the situation as it is about operational techniques and forces on the ground.”
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