Freudian slip?
While condemning Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine during a speech in Dallas, former President George W. Bush inadvertently said the name of the country he ordered an invasion of in 2003 under false pretenses.
During a speech at Southern Methodist University Wednesday, the two-term Republican blasted Putin for running rigged elections and imprisoning political opponents.
“The result is an absence of checks and balances in Russia, and the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq,” Bush said.
The 43rd president quickly and awkwardly corrected himself, saying, “I mean of Ukraine.”
He then chuckled and blamed the gaffe on his being 75 years old, which drew a laugh from the audience.
Bush infamously led the U.S. and its allies to war with Iraq in March 2003, claiming Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction that posed a threat globally. Hussein was removed from office and executed in 2006. No such weapons were found.
U.S. forces fought that war through late 2011, then became involved in further activity in Iraq as terror groups emerged in the absence of Hussein’s regime.
