George W Bush seems to me to be a good and honest person
with good intentions. However, when he was president he made a disastrous
decision to invade Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein. It seems he received terrible
advice from his advisors. The war was supposedly because Hussein was developing
weapons of mass destruction. However none were found. The invasion was
supposedly part of the response to 9-11. But although Saddam Hussein was a
cruel dictator, he probably had no direct involvement in 9-11. The war in
Afghanistan truly was related to 9-11 because Al Qaeda (the perpetrators of
9-11) were centered in Afghanistan with the consent of the Taliban who at the
time ruled Afghanistan. Unfortunately the war in Iraq and ousting of Saddam
Hussein upset the balance of power between Iraq and Iran. It also created a
power vacuum which was taken up by a Shiite Iraqi government allied to Iran
whose fundamentalist government is no friend of America. It also unleashed
various hostile Sunni factions, and ultimately led to the creation of ISIS. The
Iraq war also spread the US forces thinly, thus impeding progress in the
Afghanistan war. Add to all of that the price in lost American military lives,
lost Iraqi lives, the loss of American resources, and the exposure of the
limitations of American power. Besides being a mistake from the outset, the war
was conducted without a plan of what to do with Iraq after it was conquered.
The Iraqi people did not spontaneously come together to form a new government. The
Iraq War was a disaster in which we are still embroiled after years have gone
by. I think by the end of his term in office, President Bush himself realized
his failure.
I do not believe that George W Bush is an evil person,
but he made a bad decision in invading Iraq, and to make matters worse he had
no constructive plan for after the invasion. The result has been a tragedy for
America, Iraq, and the world.
