George W. Bush Awkwardly Rips Putin For ‘Brutal Invasion of Iraq. I Mean, of Ukraine’

Former President George W. Bush misspoke Wednesday when he lashed out at Russian President Vladimir Putin for invading “Iraq.”

The country’s 43rd president abruptly and awkwardly clarified he was talking about Ukraine, and not the impoverished country he invaded in 2003.

NBC News senior national political reporter Sahil Kapur shared a video of Bush speaking from a podium at the George W. Bush Institute.

The full context of Bush’s remarks are cut off, but he shared some strong words about Putin.

“Russian elections are rigged, political opponents are imprisoned or otherwise eliminated from participating in the electoral process,” Bush said. “The result is an absence of checks and balances in Russia.”

Bush then blamed Putin for his own war in what was a gaffe of gaffes.

“The decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq,” Bush said, before he corrected himself and stated, “I mean, of Ukraine.”

The former president was aware of what he had just done. He stumbled, “Haha… Iraq, too, anyway.”

Bush blamed the gaffe on his age, when he simply said, “Seventy-five.”

The audience at the George W. Bush Institute chuckled in unison. Perhaps it was a mercy laugh, as neither the slip, nor Bush’s invasion of Iraq to find non-existent weapons of mass destruction, are laughing matters.

According to the Pentagon, 4,431 U.S. troops died in Iraq after Bush fired up the war machine in March of 2003 with the help of Congress.

Additionally, up to 200,000 civilians had died during years of fighting as of 2019, according to Brown University:

No one knows with certainty how many people have been killed and wounded in Iraq since the 2003 United States invasion. However, we know that between 184,382 and 207,156 civilians have died from direct war related violence caused by the U.S., its allies, the Iraqi military and police, and opposition forces from the time of the invasion through October 2019.

It’s also worth mentioning Bush’s hunt for WMD’s also destabilized an entire region and birthed ISIS.

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