Presumptive Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush doesn’t like it that some people are saying his brother’s ill-fated war in Iraq gave birth to ISIS (or ISIL, as President Obama calls it).
Bush and his party-mates prefer to argue that ISIS is a by-product of Obama’s foreign policy.
But Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler gives Jeb’s claim four Pinocchios, his worst rating for inaccuracy.
HERE‘s Kessler’s story:
[T]o a large extent, the Islamic State of today is simply an outgrowth of al-Qaeda of Iraq. In 2007, the Times of London, quoting U.S. intelligence officials, described “a radical plan by Al-Qaeda to take over the Sunni heartland of Iraq and turn it into a militant Islamic state once American troops have withdrawn.”
The National Counterterrorism Center puts it this way: “Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) and more recently the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), was established in April 2004 by long-time Sunni extremist Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi.” The NCTC notes that Zarqawi was killed by a U.S. airstrike in 2006 and afterwards his successor announced the formation of the Islamic State.
(Snip)
Bush seems to have fallen prey to Washington conventional wisdom, in which ISIS suddenly emerged into consciousness in the past year or so. That may be fine for armchair analysts or journalists. But that’s little excuse for a presidential candidate, who might have to grapple with this problem if he or she is elected president.
