Donald Trump crossed the line at the last Republican debate — twice: when he blamed President George W. Bush for 9/11, and when he bought into the “Bush lied” lie about the Iraq War.
“The World Trade Center came down during the reign of George Bush,” Trump said, because the president “didn’t listen to the advice of his CIA.”
Sorry: The CIA missed it coming, as did the rest of the US intelligence community. The feds failed to connect the dots and ferret out the terrorists before they struck.
But al Qaeda actually grew — and planned the attack — on President Bill Clinton’s watch. And Clinton-era restrictions on, for example, what the CIA could tell the FBI helped keep those dots unconnected.
On Sunday, Trump tried to backtrack. “I’m not blaming [Bush],” he said. Right.
Thing is, he also went too far on Iraq.
It’s perfectly fair to say, as Trump did, “the war in Iraq was a big, fat mistake.”
At a bare minimum, Bush & Co. made huge mistakes — from toppling Saddam Hussein without a real plan for what came next, to taking far too long to oust Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld (who vehemently opposed the approach that later succeeded with the “surge”).
And, of course, by “selling” the war as being all about weapons of mass destruction that Saddam turned out not to have (except for a very few old chemical stocks).
But Trump went off the rails when he said Bush knew Saddam Hussein had no WMDs.
“They lied,” he huffed. “They said there were weapons of mass destruction . . . And they knew there were none.”
No: Every intel agency in the world thought Iraq had WMDs — because, even as Saddam publicly denied it, he was also bluffing that he did have them, so Iran and other enemies would still fear him.
By seconding the left’s “Bush lied, people died” mantra on Iraq and the “Bush knew” calumny on 9/11, Trump went much too far.
As leader in the GOP race, Trump has spoken movingly about 9/11 and how it affected New York. That makes it all the more essential for him to get his facts straight — and to reject poisonous myths.