On September 11, 2002 Donald Trump explicitly told radio personality Howard Stern that he supported an invasion of Iraq. President Bush initiated the Iraq War in March of 2003, although his administration had been building his case for the war effort since 2002. In a five-minute phone interview, the real estate mogul was asked bluntly, “Are you for invading Iraq?” Here’s what Trump said:
Yeah, I guess so.
Trump’s tenebrous response is perhaps indicative of a man that was neither invested nor well-versed in national security policy at the time. There’s only one problem here. Throughout his campaign, Trump has repeatedly boasted about opposing the Iraq War before it was popular.
Populist opposition against the Iraq War, notably from the Left, has now become a reductive meme: “Bush Lied. People Died.” At Saturday night’s Republican presidential primary debate, Trump echoed this sentiment in a rambling rant against former President George W. Bush. At one point, the GOP front runner even implied that Bush purposefully deceived the American public in order to “finish” the supposedly incomplete war effort that Bush Sr. began during the Gulf War.
This conspiracy theory was incredibly telling, given what Trump had told Stern several years prior. After Trump, albeit tepidly, confessed that he was in favor of invading Iraq, he quipped, “You know, I wish the first time it was done correctly.”
While Trump has never claimed to be a foreign policy expert, his knowledge (or lack thereof) of the Gulf War reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of history. President George H.W. Bush launched Operation Desert Storm, in concert with key Arab allies, to liberate Kuwait from Saddam Hussein’s oil-hungry occupying force. It was not an “invasion,” according to any meaningful definition of the term. The mission was completed in a matter of weeks as superior American firepower forced the Iraqi army to retreat back to Baghdad.
Unfortunately, Trump’s bravado doesn’t leave room for nuance. Instead of facts, Trump relies on hyperbole. At the New Hampshire debate on Feb. 6, Trump went so far as to claim that he could provide “25 different stories” demonstrating his opposition to the Iraq War. Trump’s campaign has yet to provide material evidence or transcripts of these “25 different stories.”
BuzzFeed News, however, managed to dig up an audio file of Stern’s 2002 interview with Trump. Here it is:
