AP Photo Jeb Bush defends George W.’s Iraq War legacy The former Florida governor stops running away from his Iraq War problem. 
 
 DAVENPORT, Iowa — Jeb Bush is owning his Iraq War problem. 
 
 Bush, wrestling with his brother’s legacy of the war for the second time in three days, again sought to cast blame on the Obama administration for its failure to achieve a “fragile but secure” peace in the region that has been overrun by ISIS militants. 
 
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 As he did in his speech Tuesday night outlining his own approach to combating ISIS in Iraq and Syria, the former Florida governor and presidential hopeful glossed over his brother’s decision to go to war in Iraq — and while acknowledging that mistakes were made, he seemed to view the war itself in positive terms. 
 
 “I’ll tell you, taking out Saddam Hussein turned out to be a pretty good deal,” the former Florida governor told a crowd of roughly 200 people who attended a forum on national security at St. Ambrose College. 
 
 Bush’s efforts to present himself as a strong, sensible commander in chief are complicated by the unpopular war his brother waged in Iraq — a war the likely Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, supported at the time — and by his own tendency to view it in a more favorable light. 
 
 While Democrats are sure to mine Bush’s words for attack ad soundbites, the candidate showed no signs of tempering his praise for his brother’s war record. 
 
 To the contrary, after months of difficulty reconciling the broadly held public view that the Iraq War was a mistake with his own hawkish foreign policy views and an innate unwillingness to rehash and criticize his brother’s record, he has settled on a strategy: unapologetically arguing that the war, however misconceived, brought about an opportunity for a more stable Middle East, one that the current Democratic administration squandered. 
 
 “I’m not saying this because I’m a Bush,” he said. “I’m proud of what he did to create a secure environment for our country.” 
 
 With 17 of his 21 foreign policy advisers being veterans of George W. Bush’s White House, Bush’s position is no great surprise. And in a wild Republican primary to be decided by a conservative electorate clamoring for a more muscular approach to foreign policy, it might be a smart strategic play. 
 
 “It’s not like you can run a campaign for president and not talk about Iraq,” said Tim Miller, Bush’s campaign spokesman. “We can talk about Iraq on our terms. Terrorism and radical Islam is something the country cares about and certainly Republican primary voters are very concerned about it. He wanted to take the mantle as somebody who’s going to have a strategy and be a leader on it. There’s a primary electorate on our side that’s looking for that.” 
 
 Specifically, Bush focused again on the 2007 troop surge as a “courageous” decision that, he argues, temporarily curtailed sectarian violence within in Iraq; and he blames President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Clinton for removing American troops too hastily and creating the power vacuum that’s allowed ISIS to take root. 
 
 “We just washed our hands of the effort,” Bush said. “We declared success and then chaos occurred afterwards.” 
 
 More than anything else Bush said Thursday afternoon here, that statement underlined the political perils of this candidate talking about that war. The words he chose to criticize Obama for bringing U.S. forces home from Iraq too soon evoked decade-old critiques of his brother’s infamous declaration of ‘Mission Accomplished’ in Iraq in a show of bravado aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln in May 2003. 
 
 Some Bush donors privately question the strategy of Bush focusing attention on foreign policy and, specifically, the Iraq War with his speech Tuesday night in Los Angeles and the forum on national security here Thursday. Even though Tuesday’s speech didn’t begin until after 9 p.m. Eastern time, it garnered significant media attention. 
 
 “If you’re of the view that the U.S. should do nothing about ISIS, Jeb’s not going to be your candidate,” Miller said. “And that might be the majority view of the media, so that’s something we have to contend with; but that’s not the view of the American people.” 
 
 The subject of the Iraq War was the first major thing to trip Bush up earlier this year and, whatever the campaign’s attempts to deal with it head on now, will likely be something he wrestles with for the duration of his campaign. 
 
 Back in May, Bush stumbled during an interview with Fox News’ Megyn Kelly when he didn’t clearly answer whether he believes the war, in hindsight, was a mistake (after four days of controversy, he acknowledged it was, in hindsight, a mistake). 
 
 “The decision to dismantle the Iraqi army was a mistake, and I think my brother would admit that today,” he said Thursday, as he pushed back at questions suggesting that he was attempting to rewrite history by suggesting that ISIS “didn’t exist” when his brother was president and that Obama bears the blame for carrying out the Strategic Forces Agreement his brother negotiated to bring U.S. troops home from Iraq. 
 
 “I reject this out of hand, this whole idea that somehow, after the surge, they’re just doing it because the agreement required them to do it,” Bush said. “Leadership requires a strategy.” 
 
 Asked whether Clinton, then Obama’s secretary of state, deserved credit for pushing within the administration to maintain a larger troop presence in Iraq, Bush hedged: “She was not very effective in her advocacy,” he said. 
 
 Bush bristled at the moderator’s suggestion that his own strategy to take on ISIS isn’t that different from Obama, but he defended the administration’s use of drones and said that he would keep detainees imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, just as Obama, despite promises to close the prison, has done. 
 
 “This is not a torture chamber,” Bush said. “There is no other option that I can see.” 
 
 In reiterating his own plan to root out ISIS, Bush called for engaging U.S. allies and working to strengthen a coalition of moderates in Syria, but his critique of Obama again brought to mind those leveled against his brother’s war. 
 
 “We can’t unilaterally go into countries,” he said. 
 
 Follow @politico ||||| DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush on Thursday declined to rule out resuming the use of torture under some circumstances by the U.S. government. 
 
 Republican presidential candidate, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, speaks during a forum sponsored by Americans for Peace, Prosperity and Security, Thursday, Aug. 13, 2015, at St. Ambrose University in... (Associated Press) 
 
 "I don't want to make a definitive, blanket kind of statement," Bush told an audience of Iowa Republicans, when asked whether he would keep in place or repeal President Barack Obama's executive order banning so-called enhanced interrogation techniques by the CIA. 
 
 "When you are president your words matter," he said. 
 
 The former Florida governor said that in general, he believes torture is inappropriate, and that he was glad his brother, former President George W. Bush, largely ended the CIA's use of the techniques before he left office. The CIA used waterboarding, slapping, nudity, sleep deprivation, humiliation and other methods to coerce al-Qaida detainees — methods the military would be prohibited from using on prisoners of war. 
 
 A Senate report released last year cited CIA records in concluding that the techniques were more brutal than previously disclosed, that the CIA lied about them, and that they failed to produce unique, life-saving intelligence. The CIA and its defenders take issue with the report. 
 
 Jeb Bush said he believed that the techniques were effective in producing intelligence, but that "now we're in a different environment." 
 
 He suggested there may be occasions when brutal interrogations were called for to keep the country safe. 
 
 "That's why I'm not saying in every condition, under every possible scenario," Bush said. 
 
 Later Thursday in Iowa, Bush said there is a difference between enhanced interrogation techniques and torture, but declined to be specific. "I don't know. I'm just saying if I'm going to be president of the United States, you take this threat seriously." 
 
 Bush has been walking a careful path, seeking to disassociate himself from some of the unpopular aspects of his brother's legacy while praising him. 
 
 In discussing the Iraq war, for example, Bush, who previously acknowledged that the intelligence didn't support the decision to invade, on Thursday said he had learned from some of the mistakes made during the occupation, including what he said was a wrong decision to disband the Iraqi military. He said his brother also now believes that was a mistake. 
 
 Bush blames the rise of the Islamic State group on what he said was Obama's failure to negotiate an agreement to leave U.S. troops there in 2011. Asked if it was true that there would be no IS absent a U.S. invasion of Iraq, he said there was no way to know. 
 
 He repeated his call for a more aggressive posture toward the Islamic State group but, like the Obama administration, he opposes sending in regular U.S. ground forces. He does favor putting special operations troops on the battlefield. 
 
 Bush spoke at a foreign policy forum sponsored by Americans for Peace, Prosperity and Security, a group chaired by Mike Rogers, a former Republican congressman from Michigan who chaired the House Intelligence Committee. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Associated Press writer Catherine Lucey contributed to this report from Ankeny, Iowa. ||||| Scottsdale, Arizona (CNN) The war in Iraq -- the issue that defined George W. Bush's presidency and haunted candidates from both parties on the 2008 campaign trail -- is back. 
 
 And this time it's creating headaches for Jeb Bush. 
 
 In his clearest declaration yet on his feelings about his brother's invasion of Iraq, the former Florida governor said Thursday that "knowing what we know now, ...I would not have engaged." 
 
 "I would not have gone into Iraq," he said. 
 
 The comments marked the fifth time this week that Bush sought to explain his position on Iraq -- a controversy that began Monday with a muddied expression of support for the war. Bush later tried to clean up the mess by calling the query -- one many believe he should have anticipated -- a "hypothetical," and by Wednesday, he acknowledged he would have done things differently in Iraq. 
 
 On Thursday, Bush argued that the invasion -- though perhaps inspired by faulty intelligence -- had been beneficial, saying the world was "significantly safer" without Saddam Hussein in power. 
 
 Photos: Jeb Bush's life Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush waves as he takes the stage as he formally announces he is joining the race for president with a speech June 15, 2015, at Miami Dade College in Miami. Hide Caption 1 of 21 Photos: Jeb Bush's life Former Florida governor Jeb Bush shakes hands with attendees after speaking at the 42nd annual Conservative Political Action Conference on February 27 in National Harbor, Maryland. Hide Caption 2 of 21 Photos: Jeb Bush's life Bush takes a selfie with a guest at a luncheon hosted by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs on February 18 in Chicago. Bush delivered his first major foreign policy speech at the event. Hide Caption 3 of 21 Photos: Jeb Bush's life Bush hands out items for Holiday Food Baskets to those in need outside the Little Havana offices of CAMACOL, the Latin American Chamber of Commerce on December 17 in Miami. Hide Caption 4 of 21 Photos: Jeb Bush's life Bush waves to the audience at the Tampa Bay Times Forum in Tampa, Florida, on August 30, 2012, on the final day of the Republican National Convention. Hide Caption 5 of 21 Photos: Jeb Bush's life Bush (left) and wife Columba Bush attend the 2012 Lincoln Center Institute Gala at Frederick P. Rose Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center on March 7, 2012, in New York City. Hide Caption 6 of 21 Photos: Jeb Bush's life President Barack Obama (left) speaks about Bush (center) while visiting Miami Central Senior High School on March 4, 2011 in Miami, Florida. The visit focused on education. Hide Caption 7 of 21 Photos: Jeb Bush's life Bush (left) speaks with Brazilian President in charge Jose Alancar during a meeting at Planalto Palace in Brasilia, April 17, 2007. Bush was in Brazil to speak about sugar and ethanol business. Hide Caption 8 of 21 Photos: Jeb Bush's life Then-Texas Governor Rick Perry (center) testifies as Bush (right) and then-Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano (left) listen during a hearing before the House Committee on Homeland Security on Capitol Hill October 19, 2005. Hide Caption 9 of 21 Photos: Jeb Bush's life Bush gives a thumbs up signal from his car as he leaves a local polling station after casting his vote in Coral Gables, Florida, November 5, 2002. Hide Caption 10 of 21 Photos: Jeb Bush's life Bush walks out of the West Wing after meeting with his brother, then-President George W. Bush, at the White House January 9, 2002. Governor Bush participated in the signing ceremony of the Everglades Protection Agreement. Hide Caption 11 of 21 Photos: Jeb Bush's life Then-Mexican President Vincente Fox (left) and Bush hold a press conference September 7, 2001, in Miami. Fox visited Florida to attend the Americas Conference and deliver a speech to speak about issues such as immigration. Hide Caption 12 of 21 Photos: Jeb Bush's life Then-President George W. Bush (right) is greeted by Jeb Bush on March 21, 2001, at Orlando International Airport in Orlando, Florida. President Bush was in Orlando to attend the American College of Cardiology Annual Convention. Hide Caption 13 of 21 Photos: Jeb Bush's life Bush speaks during a press conference at the Carandolet Government Palace in Quito, January 18, 2006. Bush and a businessmen delegation were in a two-day visit to talk about a free trade agreement. Hide Caption 14 of 21 Photos: Jeb Bush's life Bush speaks to reporters after meeting with the Florida State Cabinet at the Florida State Capitol Building November 16, 2000, in Tallahassee, Florida. Hide Caption 15 of 21 Photos: Jeb Bush's life Then-President George W. Bush (left) and Jeb Bush (right), raise their arms onstage following a rally at the Florida State Fairgrounds, October 25, 2000, in Brandon, Florida. Hide Caption 16 of 21 Photos: Jeb Bush's life Jeb Bush (left) and then-President George W. Bush stand with their arms around each other's shoulders at a rally in Miami, Florida, September 22, 2000. Hide Caption 17 of 21 Photos: Jeb Bush's life Then-President George W. Bush (right) and Jeb Bush go through the line for strawberries during a stop at the Stawberry Festival March 12, 2000 in Plant City, Florida. Hide Caption 18 of 21 Photos: Jeb Bush's life The Bush family, (left to right) former U.S. President George W., former Florida Governor Jeb, former President George H.W. and his wife Barbara, watch play during the Foursomes matches September 25, 1999 at The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts the site of the 33rd Ryder Cup Matches. Hide Caption 19 of 21 Photos: Jeb Bush's life Former President George H.W. Bush (second left), his wife Barbara Bush (left), their son Jeb Bush (center), then-first lady Hillary Clinton (second right), and former then-President Bill Clinton (right) look up to see the U.S. Army Golden Knights parachute team November 6, 1997 at the conclusion of the dedication ceremony of the George Bush Library in College Station, Texas. Hide Caption 20 of 21 Photos: Jeb Bush's life Portrait of the Bush family in front of their Kennebunkport, Maine house August 24, 1986. Pictured, back row: Margaret holding daughter Marshall, Marvin Bush, Bill LeBlond. Pictured, front row: Neil Bush holding son Pierce, Sharon, George W. Bush holding daughter Barbara, Laura Bush holding daughter Jenna, Barbara Bush, George Bush, Sam LeBlond, Doro Bush Lebond, George P. (Jeb's son), Jeb Bush holding son Jebby, Columba Bush and Noelle Bush. Hide Caption 21 of 21 
 
 The clumsy responses have surprised his allies and could reinforce concerns that Bush, who hasn't run for public office in more than a decade, is a rusty campaigner ill-equipped for the fast-moving news cycles of the social media age. It also revealed the difficulty Bush faces in presenting himself as his "own man" unburdened by his brother's controversial foreign policy decisions. 
 
 "The question about Iraq is not an illegitimate, hypothetical question. If you're sitting around pondering a Jeb Bush candidacy, it's the first obvious question that you have to be able to answer," said GOP strategist Steve Schmidt, who helped John McCain craft his message on Iraq during the 2008 election. "What his answer shows is the difficulty in moving beyond the Bush foreign policy in order to be able to attack the Obama-Clinton foreign policy, and to offer a vision for moving the country on to a firmer security footing." 
 
 The issue has become a significant distraction for Bush as he tours the nation ahead of a potential White House bid. 
 
 One Wednesday night, Bush found himself defending his brother's policies after a college student confronted him in Nevada. "Your brother created ISIS," she told him during an accusatory exchange on the current situation in the Middle East. 
 
 Bush's Republican rivals pounced at the opening. 
 
 'Really important question' 
 
 "I think it's a really important question, and I don't think it's just hypothetical," Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, a GOP presidential hopeful, told CNN's Wolf Blitzer Wednesday. "I think even at the time invading Iraq was a mistake." 
 
 New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie noted he had no trouble answering the question directly and told CNN's Jake Tapper that in light of intelligence showing Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction, he would not have gone to war. Ohio Gov. John Kasich took a similar stance in an interview with an Ohio newspaper. 
 
 Two GOP bundlers who couldn't speak with attribution because they are raising money for Bush said it was unnerving to see their candidate so prone to gaffes. Still, they shrugged it off as part of the campaign process. 
 
 While it has been a tough week for Bush, the return of the Iraq debate is also a reminder that the war perhaps looms even larger for Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton. Of all the candidates contemplating a presidential run, she is the only one in the field who has cast a vote to authorize military action in Iraq. Some Democratic voters still have not forgiven her for the vote -- cast when she served as a senator from New York -- which was a significant factor in her loss to Barack Obama during the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries. 
 
 "I thought I had acted in good faith and made the best decision I could with the information I had," Clinton, a former secretary of state, wrote in her book "Hard Choices." "And I wasn't alone in getting it wrong. But I still got it wrong." 
 
 Still, Clinton has not addressed her vote on Iraq since announcing her presidential bid, whereas Bush spent much of this week in the awkward position of having to clarify his views. 
 
 'Different decisions' 
 
 He went a step further at a political event in Nevada on Wednesday, saying, "given the power of looking back and having that, of course anybody would have made different decisions. There's no denying that." 
 
 He did not go so far as to say the war was a mistake, arguing that hypothetical questions about what he would have done are a disservice to the soldiers that fought and died in the conflict. 
 
 With months to go before GOP voters cast their first ballots in the early nominating contests, it's not clear that any of Bush's early stumbles will leave lasting damage. 
 
 "If you're going to make (mistakes) -- make them nine months out," said Tom Rath, a New Hampshire political operative who isn't aligned with a candidate. "I don't know that his position in the field has been impacted by this, but he was playing defense." 
 
 But Craig Robinson, a GOP activist who founded The Iowa Republican, said the flap over Bush's Iraq comments could further weaken his standing among GOP voters in the Hawkeye State -- not only because they raised questions about his polish as a candidate, but because they also created confusion about how his foreign policy approach would differ from his brother's. 
 
 Bush's original comment "resurrected the debate on Iraq, which is a losing argument," Robinson said. 
 
 "His refusal now to answer any similar questions after he claims to have misheard the original questions is even worse," Robinson said. "Nobody wants to go back and litigate war in Iraq, even now as the GOP is very hawkish when it comes to foreign policy. The problem with Jeb's answer, and now non-answer, is that we are left to wonder what his foreign policy would be if elected president." 
 
 While the war in Iraq was unpopular with the American public -- 75% said it was not "worth the loss of American lives and other costs," in a June 2014 CBS News/New York Times poll -- the conversation surrounding that corner of the globe has moved beyond the invasion in recent years. At Bush's political event in Nevada Wednesday, the first question was not about the war that was launched more than a decade ago, but rather the rise of the Islamic State militant group. 
 
 "What happened in 2003 is not a subject of a policy debate that affects what the U.S. is doing in Iraq today and what the U.S. will be doing in Iraq tomorrow," said Anthony Cordesman, an expert on security and Middle East policy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "The world is a very different place." 
 
 The discussion surrounding Iraq has evolved to include the fight against ISIS and broader sectarian, political and economic instability, he said. 
 
 "If Bush had been a little more articulate, people would've picked up on the fact that he was making that point," Cordesman said. But "if he can't rise above this issue, he hasn't got a prayer anyway." 
 
 The confrontation with the college student in Nevada about ISIS resulted in a new riff on him defending his brother's foreign policy. 
 
 "When we left Iraq, security had been arranged, Al Qaeda had been taken out. There was a fragile system that could have been brought up to eliminate the sectarian violence," he said, arguing that the rise of ISIS was President Obama's fault, not his brothers.
– George W. Bush left Iraq in pretty good shape, only for President Obama to mess it all up, according to Jeb Bush. The candidate, speaking at a national security forum in Iowa yesterday, continued to defend his brother's war record, arguing that "taking out Saddam Hussein turned out to be a pretty good deal," Bloomberg reports. He blamed the rise of ISIS on Obama's failure to strike a deal for US troops to stay in the country after 2011 and said that under the Bush administration, the "mission was accomplished" regarding Iraq's security. "That is a fact," he said. "You can't rewrite history in that regard." Bush said the 2007 troop surge was a courageous move but that chaos occurred when the next administration "declared success" and washed their hands of the effort, reports Politico, which notes that 17 of his 21 foreign policy advisers served under George W. Bush. The candidate, who admitted months ago that he wouldn't have invaded Iraq knowing what we know now, said mistakes were made after the invasion and that he and his brother now believe disbanding Iraq's military was an error. He also refused to rule out lifting Obama's ban on torture, telling the forum he didn't want to make a "definitive, blanket kind of statement," the AP reports. (This week, Bush used Iraq to attack Clinton.)